37signals Founder: SaaS Has Never Truly Died
Jason Fried, founder of 37signals, responded to the claim that "SaaS is dead," pointing out that SaaS has always been "dead"—if the product does not fit, the price is too high, information is confusing, features are prioritized over the company, it relies on funding rather than customers, costs are too high with excessive scale, there is severe homogenization, or the purchasing process is difficult.
Fried emphasized that SaaS is not dead overall; only those products and companies that have long-standing issues will be deemed dead.
He has long advocated for a streamlined, bootstrapped, and customer-first business model, with his company Basecamp and products like HEY known for not relying on large-scale funding.
This viewpoint comes at a time when the software industry is experiencing changes in cost and competition dynamics due to AI, sparking discussions on the sustainability of traditional subscription models.
The failure conditions listed by Fried directly point to product-market fit, unit economics, and execution details, rather than the business model itself.
From a market mechanism perspective, this statement is driven by public opinion, reinforcing the focus on high-quality independent SaaS, with funds and attention shifting towards low-cost, high-fit products, while cash-burning, homogenized startups face pressure, prompting entrepreneurs to reassess their funding and growth paths.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Since founding 37signals in the 2000s, Jason Fried has consistently adhered to the "less is more" philosophy, rejecting excessive funding and feature bloat, with Basecamp being consistently profitable and publicly opposing traditional VC-driven growth, contrasting sharply with most SaaS startups.
In terms of capital strategy, he achieves sustainable cash flow through bootstrapping and high pricing with low marketing, relying directly on customer payments rather than external funding rounds, motivated by the desire to maintain product independence and decision-making freedom, while amplifying influence through public writing.
Similar cases can be seen in other successful bootstrapped software companies like Mailchimp in its early stages, or in contrast to cash-burning SaaS projects that have failed; the current software industry is in a phase where AI is reducing development costs and intensifying homogenized competition.
The structural judgment indicates a shift in pricing power: SaaS with true product-market fit holds pricing and customer loyalty, with mechanisms that replace scale expansion with low-friction purchasing and clear value propositions, thus shifting the industry from being funding-driven to customer-driven.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
When the product does not fit, no matter how new the model, it is dead.
Funding replacing customers = declaring failure in advance.
Simple, purchasable products never die.