I'm building a vibe-coding platform that helps with building internal apps and dashboards, and this is exactly what I have seen with some of our clients.
A couple of them mentioned that they plan to cancel subscriptions totaling more than $100k/year for the apps they will replace with that SaaS. According to them, they have many subscriptions they keep only because of one feature. Another issue is that their workflows become a real mess when they need to copy and paste data into multiple tabs. Custom-built internal tools seem like an obvious solution. Those who migrate to custom-built tools, however, will face the challenge of orchestrating their lifecycle and creating a consistent deployment workflow, but this is one of the challenges we are trying to solve at UI Bakery.
In my understanding, SaaS products that provide customers access to proprietary data are in a much better position than other SaaS platforms. HubSpot’s acquisition of Clearbit a couple of years ago now makes even more sense because it will help them retain some of their clients.
I have also seen multiple similar use cases where non-technical users build internal tools and dashboards on top of existing data for our users (I'm building UI Bakery). This approach might feel a bit risky for some developers, but it reduces the number of iterations non-technical users need with developers to achieve what they want.
One of the worst emails I’ve ever received on Sunday. Our team wasn’t entirely surprised, however, given the recent product decisions and features that had been released.
Does anyone have experience migrating from Height, and what did you choose as an alternative?
Very risky. It would only make sense if that solution does exactly what the OP needs but lacks stability and some new features. However, it's very likely that the product is a generic one, and the OP will end up spending the next couple of years supporting features they don't need but are interconnected with the ones they actually use. This would be especially challenging if they buy only the rights/code without the development team behind it.
If your current third-party product is barely functional and unsupported, it's clear that you need to consider a replacement as part of your mid-term strategy. It seems that there is a high risk of your vendor ceasing operations or their solution not being able to support your growth. The sooner you start the transition, the less painful it will be.
When deciding whether to build a replacement yourself, consider whether this solution could become a competitive advantage in the market. This is unlikely to be the case for a logistics company unless you plan to sell the software you build. From a business perspective, it's usually better to invest in your core strengths and outsource everything else as much as possible. Otherwise, securing the budget to hire the right talent in the right amounts will always be more challenging.
Assuming software is not your core strength, it may be wiser to search for one or several solutions that you can combine to support your strategy for decades while providing a certain level of flexibility. This might also mean building some parts of your system with low-code or even custom code, but I would try to keep that to a minimum.
If you still decide to build something custom, my recommendation would be to avoid replacing everything at once. Instead, replace your existing solution gradually. Start by rebuilding the most problematic functions first, and then add other features as you go. You might find along the way that some parts of the older solution's functionality are no longer needed.
As the founder of a low-code SaaS product (https://uibakery.io) and a service provider company (https://www.akveo.com), I can definitely relate to your challenges, which are quite similar to those of my clients. If you need any help with your transition, feel free to reach out at vlad a-t uibakery.io, and I can look at your use case in more detail or connect you with others who might help.
How do you plan to integrate Outlit with Retool? I'm quite interested because I'm one of the founders of UI Bakery, and maybe this could be one of the use cases we could support.
Someday - yes. But for now, the rate of improvement of AI has slowed down. They all show that they have beaten another benchmark, but there's no breakthrough similar to GPT-3.5.
I usually ask about the developer's experience and create scenarios based on what they consider their strengths. This approach is fairer, in my opinion, since not everyone has worked with AWS and S3, despite their common usage. Another important point is that you can never truly gauge how well a developer will fit until they actually start working for you. Given the current market is quite favorable for employers, and if you have the scope for development, it might make sense to start with several developers and then keep the one who fits best. However, in this case, please ensure you mention that there will be a probation period.
Additionally, I know many great developers who do not have portfolio websites.
One of the useful things I learned from a professor at my university is that every technology is good enough for its own use case. I still don't understand why certain engineers don't get this and go from "XYZ is awesome, I use it everywhere" to "I'm over XYZ."
Just like the title of the article suggests, GraphQL is great, but ONLY in the right context.
Since the release of ChatGPT, there have been multiple attempts to simplify the work of software engineers. UI Bakery is excited to join this trend by introducing our AI App Generator.
This tool enables non-technical users to generate internal tools, CRUD apps, and admin panels simply by connecting their data source and providing a text prompt with their desired outcome, all without the involvement of software engineers. Additionally, it is possible to modify the generated app with a follow-up prompt or by using the UI Bakery visual editor. Once the app is ready, it can be shared with other users by inviting them to the workspace.
Currently, we support connections to external SQL databases and UI Bakery's managed Postgres database as data sources. However, we are eager to learn about the use-cases you envision for our tool and to explore ways to expand its capabilities.
Huge kudos to the author for this article. I'm the founder of the competitive bootstrapped product https://uibakery.io. So I was really surprised to hear that Airplane was shutting down at the beginning of the year. This story provides an insider's perspective on what happened and helps to understand their situation better.
However, it's still sad that in the end, the customers suffered the most. While I agree that the founder probably did fairly well in his situation, it's unfortunate that he did not consider or did not manage to achieve other options, such as buying out the company from investors. They had a decent product that could have become a successful and profitable business within its niche.
A couple of them mentioned that they plan to cancel subscriptions totaling more than $100k/year for the apps they will replace with that SaaS. According to them, they have many subscriptions they keep only because of one feature. Another issue is that their workflows become a real mess when they need to copy and paste data into multiple tabs. Custom-built internal tools seem like an obvious solution. Those who migrate to custom-built tools, however, will face the challenge of orchestrating their lifecycle and creating a consistent deployment workflow, but this is one of the challenges we are trying to solve at UI Bakery.
In my understanding, SaaS products that provide customers access to proprietary data are in a much better position than other SaaS platforms. HubSpot’s acquisition of Clearbit a couple of years ago now makes even more sense because it will help them retain some of their clients.