SaaS is Dead… Except I Just Bought More. Why?

In a world increasingly dominated by the buzz of artificial intelligence, where headlines scream about AI taking over jobs and reshaping industries, it might seem counter-intuitive to invest in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. After all, isn't AI supposed to automate everything, rendering traditional software and even human roles obsolete?

Well, that's certainly one narrative. But I believe there's a critical nuance often overlooked. While AI will undoubtedly transform the landscape of work, some human skills and roles will become not just resistant to automation, but even more valuable and, indeed, indispensable. And at the heart of this evolving paradigm is one crucial function: sales.

Specifically, the kind of deeply human, relationship-driven engagement that characterizes Enterprise sales. This isn't about transactional clicks; it's about understanding complex needs, building trust, navigating intricate organizational structures, and forging genuine connections. These are inherently human endeavors, and frankly, I don't see AI fully replicating them anytime soon.

It's precisely this conviction that led me to make a recent investment (license of): a new software platform from a company called prevu.ai. And no, this isn't a sign of me hedging my bets against AI. Quite the opposite. My investment in prevu.ai is a direct reflection of my belief that in an AI-powered future, certain tools will become not just helpful, but absolutely critical for the human elements of sales to thrive.

The Problem with Sales: Where Systemization Meets Human Nature

For decades, particularly within large-scale sales organizations, there has been a relentless drive to systematize the sales process. The intention is noble: to create repeatable success, ensure consistency, and scale operations. This has led to the proliferation of rigid methodologies, meticulously defined processes, and a veritable alphabet soup of tools designed to manage customer relationships and track every interaction.

And to a certain extent, this approach works. For transactional sales, for simpler product offerings, or for segments of the market where volume and efficiency are paramount, these systems can deliver predictable, if not always inspiring, results.

However, a fundamental disconnect emerges when we examine the pinnacle of sales achievement: Enterprise sales. For over a century, the top performers in this arena weren't necessarily the most methodical automatons. They were, to use an often-romanticized term, "relationship sellers." Their success stemmed from an innate ability to build deep, genuine connections, understand complex organizational dynamics, and navigate the intricate web of human interactions within large corporations.

Yet, as sales matured as a discipline, the focus on pure relationship building, while never entirely discarded, began to be complemented by a desire for more analytical rigor. The 1980s and 90s saw the rise of sophisticated methodologies – think names like Target Account Selling and the strategic frameworks from Miller Heiman (previously known as Strategic Selling). These weren't about replacing relationships but about bringing a structured approach to the art of understanding and evaluating complex sales opportunities and deals.

The Answer to My Own Problem: Why prevu.ai

My journey to prevu.ai stemmed from a very real, personal challenge within our investment portfolio. As investors in several small SaaS startups, I frequently found myself frustrated by the wildly disparate and unpredictable sales results presented at our board meetings and during monthly and quarterly management reviews. It wasn't that the individual sellers in these businesses were inherently incapable, quite the opposite. The core issue was a fundamental lack of alignment.

We lacked a standardized approach to assessing the true quality of sales opportunities, a consistent process for navigating deals, and, crucially, a unified way to manage and prioritize our limited resources. These are nascent SaaS companies, each with varying degrees of sales skill and experience. We have everything from an individual with 30 years of enterprise sales experience in a high tech industry, to someone who has sold more digital marketing and media advertising than probably most people in Australia, and then there's myself.

This situation prompted a reflection on my own sales journey. Around 15 years ago, when I first transitioned from corporate roles into sales, I had the immense privilege of going straight into an intensive training course run by Valkyrie in Miller Heiman methodology. Before I could develop any "bad habits" or accumulate five to ten years of organic, unstructured experience, I was immersed in a proven methodology. This framework has since served as my operating system for sales: I've lived by it, trained others in it, and taught it to numerous sales organizations. It has been invaluable in helping me understand opportunities, be self-critical, and explain precise gaps in our approach with a transparency that ultimately fosters improvement. 2,4,10,12 anyone?

And this brings me directly to why I licensed and implemented prevu.ai across 3 SaaS startups at once.

What Prevu has achieved is nothing short of remarkable: they've taken this powerful, time-tested methodology and seamlessly integrated it into a software platform. It's incredibly efficient, remarkably easy to use, and requires minimal setup – essentially just connecting it to your existing CRM.

prevu.ai is poised to transform how we run our sales calls, how we assess the quality of our deals, and how we prioritize our valuable resources. This will, in turn, allow us to forecast weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual sales with far greater precision. It promises to overcome some of the most significant challenges small SaaS scale-ups face: an unpredictable sales pipeline that often leads to running out of cash before achieving critical milestones, frequently resulting in painful down-rounds.

In Summary

In a world increasingly shaped by AI, the notion that SaaS is dead might seem plausible. However, I argue a counter-intuitive point: certain human-centric roles, particularly in Enterprise sales, will become even more critical. These roles thrive on relationship building, complex understanding, and nuanced communication – skills that AI, for now, cannot fully replicate.

My recent investment in prevu.ai isn't a retreat from the AI-driven future; it's an embrace of it.

Why write this article?

Im not paid by Prevu, in fact, I paid them, I haven't (yet) invested in Prevu, they don't know I am writing this article - this is the only way I could keep the content genuine and be honest with myself, and you the reader.

I look at my personal sales results and I attribute an awful lot of my success to the discipline of applying methodology. But I can see this is difficult in the short attention span modern world we live in, to effectively adopt in startups and scale ups. I watch founders hire 'the best sales guy or girl from...' only to reflect 6 months later that they built massive pipeline, and closed nothing.

Or, those that get on sales calls and waste 55 mins of the hour listening to the most talkative of the team about the meeting this week, and they are no closer to knowing what will close when.

A very good friend of mine that ran world wide sales for the largest enterprise software company in the world visited recently from Europe, we talked at length about this subject, and I asked him "how do you run your sales calls" and his response "how much, and when".

I get it, but in startup context we the investors, board members and backers owe our portfolio companies and their team, the next generation of sales people, the same enablement and support we all had when we were 20 and 30.

And maybe a few of the old dogs need to learn a few new tricks to.