Ask HN: What's the competitive advantage these days? AI is making everything easier. Anyone can clone most SaaS products in a week. I feel like technical skill is no longer valuable. What makes SaaS startups valuable, and what are the competitive advantages and moats these days? |
Yea, it's not true. Currently I'm seeing this business style type of co-founder that I met through a mutual connection. He can do things I couldn't, but cloning a SaaS under a week? It's not one of them.
He created an interactive prototype with lovable.dev and while it fleshes out his idea to me, he clearly isn't strong in UX-design either. Nor does he need to be.
But what's sad about what you're suggesting is that we've built the most advanced LLMs in the history of humanity and all we can think to do with them is clone something that already exists. Innovation still requires a human brain and the LLMs only know what they've been told.
So I would say the need for technical skills is actually even more acute. We need smart people to solve highly complex problems as well as teams of developers to deliver quality, secure and efficient code.
I give you the challenge to clone Jira or GitLab in a week. I'll give you a $million if you can do either.
``` 2025-07-20 10:32 That’s an exhilarating challenge! But here’s the sober reality:
*1. Scale & Surface Area*
* *Jira* and *GitLab* each represent well over a decade of engineering effort from dozens‑to‑hundreds of developers, QA, designers, product managers, and SREs. * They’re not just web apps—they’re ecosystems: issue tracking, CI/CD pipelines, permissions, integrations, APIs, marketplace extensions, mobile clients, high‑availability clustering, compliance tooling, analytics, and elaborate permission models.
*2. Engineering Effort in One Week* Even an aggressive “strip‑to‑core‑features” build would demand:
| Area | Must‑Have Functionality | Typical Complexity | Realistic Time (solo) | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------ | --------------------- | | Auth & user management | SSO, 2FA, roles | weeks | 3‑4 weeks | | Issue / Merge request model | CRUD, workflow, attachments | months | 4‑6 weeks | | Git backend or sprint boards | Repo storage or board drag‑drop | months‑years | 8‑12 weeks | | CI runner orchestration | Job scheduler, logs, artifacts | years | 6‑12 months | | Notifications & webhooks | Email, Slack, webhooks | weeks | 3‑4 weeks | | Security & compliance | RBAC, audits, CVE patching | ongoing | Ongoing |
That’s after *scope‑cutting to the bone*—and still well beyond seven days for even a seasoned full‑stack team.
*3. Minimum Viable “Clone”* If the goal is a demo that looks Jira‑ or GitLab‑like and handles the absolute basics (login, create issue, simple Kanban board or Git repo viewer), you’d still need:
* *Pre‑built OSS components* (e.g., Focalboard, Gitea, Drone CI) * *Glue code* to stitch UI, auth, and database models * *DevOps* for cloud deploy, backups, SSL, monitoring * *Acceptance tests* so the demo doesn’t fall over during the pitch
With a well‑coordinated *5‑7 person tiger team*, an MVP façade might be shown inside a week—but it would be fragile, feature‑poor, and nowhere near production‑ready.
*4. What \$1 million can buy fast*
* *Fork & skin* an existing open‑source platform (e.g., Forgejo for GitLab‑like, OpenProject or Plane for Jira‑like). * Hire a *dedicated squad* (engineers, designer, DevOps) on a 3‑to‑6‑month crash program to reach parity for the specific subset of features you actually need. * Budget for *security audit, uptime SLA, and ongoing maintenance*—because the first release is only the beginning.
*5. Suggested Next Steps*
1. *Clarify scope:* Which exact capabilities do you really need on Day 1? 2. *Select a foundation:* OSS codebase vs. greenfield build. 3. *Form a team + timeline:* Realistically 12–24 weeks for a hardened v1 with a mid‑sized team. 4. *Milestones & deliverables:* Demo, beta, public launch, enterprise tier. 5. *Contingency planning:* Budget for security, scaling, and feature creep.
If you’d like, I can help map out a detailed project plan, assemble a tech‑stack recommendation, or break down resourcing and costs. Let me know how you’d like to proceed! ```
:-)
If you look at the leveling guidelines of any major tech company. Technical skill alone only gets you to a mid level job. After that it’s about scope, impact and dealing with ambiguity.
https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html
https://dropbox.tech/culture/sharing-our-engineering-career-...
A competitive advantage is knowing how to communicate business value from using technology.
my hot take is this: meditation and somatic practice is no longer optional in the age of AI. while everyone is deeply in the AI frenzy, the people who will stand out from the crowd are the ones who go all in to cultivate self-awareness and higher order human abilities.
Choose the smallest niche you can find and make a product just for them.
Ie a business solution that solves problems, saves time, or gets more customers for small businesses.
CRM, POS for massage therapists in Florida only, fork the tax filing platform from the government and make it tailored for said massage therapist...
Software is a tool and lowest common denominator might make you a billionaire or leave you broke, serving/creating/finding a small group of people with similar needs who you can cater for is the ticket
Tell a prospect/client you'll do something, do it, and you'll already be ahead of 90% of businesses out there.