The SaaS Apocalypse Is a Goldmine With Figma’s Matt Colyer

By Every

Categories: Startup, Product, AI

Summary

The 'SaaS apocalypse' is actually a goldmine: the developer population will explode from 25-40M to over 1B, creating dramatically more software demand. Established SaaS companies like Figma that integrate AI agents win by solving the maintenance burden that DIY-coded tools create.

Key Takeaways

  1. Developer population will grow from 25-40M to 1B+, creating massive demand for SaaS tools that handle maintenance and reliability—the real cost of homegrown solutions isn't building, it's operating.
  2. The 'vibe coding everything' narrative misses the operational burden: when you build your own agent, you inherit ongoing SMTP upgrades, bug fixes, and reliability costs that make buying existing software more attractive.
  3. Figma's strategy is dual-track: build native AI agents into the product while exposing MCP (Model Context Protocol) to let external agents integrate. This hedges between creating defensible features and staying AI-native.
  4. Personal experience matters: Colyer built his own email agent 2 years ago (rickety Python script), discovered the pain of ownership, and now buys more software than ever—this is the hidden market SaaS founders should target.
  5. The democratization of software development won't kill SaaS—it multiplies it. More builders means more demand for tools that eliminate operational friction, making this the opposite of an apocalypse for existing platforms.

Related topics

Transcript Excerpt

the SAS apocalypse or the next era of software, if you will. I'm really excited about it, and I think Figma and a lot of other SAS businesses [music] are, too. Because like I've worked in developer tools for a long time, and maybe 5 10 years ago, the estimate of like number of developers worldwide was like 25 million, 30 million, 40 million, give or take. I think what's most exciting about this time is that I think it's going to be like a billion, maybe even more than that. I think there's this incredible time that we're moving through of product development and really the democratization of technology. I think the end result is that there is dramatically more software out there in the world. If you're in that space, it means it's a gold mine, right? >> [music] >> Every is the only subscri…

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