“Building in the AI world has two hard problems: one you’re building for an unknown future and two the ground is shifting from under you all the time”.
A software developer by trade and serial tech entrepreneur by practice, Guy Podjarny says his ‘claim to fame’ is likely founding Snyk, which he humbly admits is ‘kicking along well’ with $300M+ARR, 1000+ employees and a current valuation of $7.4B.
But being a self-declared ‘addict’ to solving big problems with technology, Guy left Snyk in March 2024 to found Tessl (subsequently securing $125M funding in just eight months). Its mission? To reimagine software development in the AI era.
Speaking to the The SaaS Revolution Show, Guy outlined his AI vision, the impact of AI on SaaS development and tips for scaling in the AI era. Here’s the highlights.
The Tessl mission
“We believe that software development will evolve from being code-centric to being spec-centric.”
Guy believes that today’s software projects follow a common trajectory: get some requirements, implement something, throw away the requirements and continue implementing over time.
But with LLMs, there’s a new development paradigm where you can specify exactly what you want to build, including definitions and guardrails of how to build it correctly.
That’s what Tessl is looking to create for developers using agentic dev.
The impact of AI on SaaS development
“There’s a limitless amount of value to be created, especially in software development, which brings ideas to life.”
With LLMs and AI tools unlocking people’s capacity to create software, there will be infinite opportunities in the SaaS development space and a widespread shake-up of development roles. Guy notes:
- Developers are experimenting with new tools. Developers traditionally stuck with their preferred IDEs (Integrated Development Environments), but there’s now a lot of willingness to experiment with AI IDEs, so it’s an exciting time to get people to try new things.
- Developers’ roles are levelling-up. Developers will become managers of AI labour with a broader suite of responsibility (i.e. communicating what to build and then supervising the work). This will then impact roles further up the stack – i.e. a development manager might become a semi-exec and need to think about business needs and customer interactions etc.
- CTO roles require more agility. As companies start doing more thanks to AI and non-developers (i.e. Sales, HR and finance) start building applications for the company, CTOs will need to evaluate more ideas and interact with a larger breadth of the organisation.
Tips for scaling in the AI era
“I first care about creating value and solving real user problems. I think when you do that, the ground is set to get fast adoption. I do care about getting revenue, but only as a proxy for delivering value.”
With AI, the upside is bigger than ever, but the risk is also bigger than ever.
Guy believes that the total addressable market (TAM) is infinite with AI – software developers will only be limited by their imaginations – but he is concerned that the actual value of AI development tools lies with the underlying LLMs.
From Cursor to Lovable, lots of dollars are being spent on ‘product surfaces’ that unlock the LLM’s ‘magic’, but this – coupled with AI development tools’ low loyalty and high churn – could lead to zero or negative margins unless you focus on delivering value.
To give yourself the best chance of success, Guy recommends:
Choosing the right investors
Regardless of your financial heft (e.g. after Snyk’s success, Guy could have bootstrapped Tessl), choose really capable investors that will give good advice and actually help along the journey. For instance, Guy chose Index to lead Tessl’s Series A as he liked the culture, knew they had a strong grasp of the technical domain and had a strong operating arm that helps with marketing and hiring.
Spending wisely
Be mindful of using the money to grow faster, but be smart about where you’re spending it. Don’t think you need to spend it in 18 months to reach the next milestone. Don’t spend it before you’re ready. And don’t fake product market fit by just buying it.
Building a high-growth team
With AI, the pace of change is so quick that having the right people on board to build and adapt is more critical than ever. To attract a high-growth team:
- Steer independent-minded people. You can’t tell good people what to do. You need to convince them with clear messages and simple core principles.
- Build independent teams. Create a set of independent teams that are able to work on their domain across clear interfaces and can work on independent timelines. Architect the software to allow for that.
- Part ways quickly and amicably when needed. When a person is not the right person for the job, any procrastination can cause a lot of damage. It’s bad for them, you and the company, so don’t delay: act on it.
SaaStock Europe: Sneak peek
“Success comes from product. It comes from delivery. It doesn’t come from fundraising. I got a lot of congratulations for our [$100 million] Series A, but in practice, I want to be congratulated for building a product that people love and provides lots of business value.”
After 18 months, Tessl is about to launch its product (or ‘third’ product after pivoting from products one and two due to AI shifting the goalposts).
Guy will be giving a keynote talk at Saastock Europe in Dublin on 14-15 October to discuss his learnings from Tessl’s journey from incorporation to launch, as well as:
- Learnings from scaling Snyk.
- Which best practices hold true and which beliefs to shake off (or adapt as AI changes).
- His perspectives on the future of AI software development.
Get your ticket here. Register before 22 September to sign-up for the 15-minute meetings programme: Meetup.
