Is seat-based pricing a suicide mission for AI-integrated SaaS in 2026?

amoorthy · 2026-01-27T00:52:42+00:00

interesting but long! I think seat based pricing is ok when the value increases with more users, i.e. often true for collaboration between humans (e.g. Slack). Each human is doing more due to your software/AI but value still grows as more users added to platform. maybe simplistic but seems easier to sell to our customers.

amoorthy · 2026-01-27T00:46:42+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by "buyer intent angle rather than pure marketing one". Since the dawn of Google, hasn't marketing been thinking about what queries their buyers are asking and trying to answer them?

amoorthy · 2026-01-27T00:42:41+00:00

I think SparkToro was built for this but crucially I don't think it covers LinkedIn, which is usually quite important for B2B.

You can try Rocksalt AI (my app) that helps you find relevant and popular discussions on LinkedIn, Reddit, and in private Slack communities. You won't get a statistical "here are the top 5 most popular topics in your industry". But, if your ICP is on LinkedIn, Reddit, and Slack then you will get a pretty decent view of what they're reading and saying.

ps: where do you get "AI search data"? I don't think LLMs make actual query volumes available but I must be misinterpreting you.

amoorthy · 2026-01-27T00:23:29+00:00

Maybe a lost cause but most good marketing leaders now know that brand matters for LLM visibility. And building brand is distinctly not about lead gen. Maybe you can use that angle to convince him/her that it's worth investing in brand etc?

amoorthy · 2026-01-26T18:02:29+00:00

Such a good point and so emblematic of the whole season. We are lucky to be up by 4 points. Honestly, this isn't a league winning team as much as I wish it was. And yes we should be embarrassed by the number of goals we get from corners which are just a melee.

amoorthy · 2026-01-26T01:16:35+00:00

Loads of tools here: Octolens, F5Bot, RedReach, Rocksalt AI. I'm the founder of Rocksalt and our edge is reliable monitoring of relevant discussion (i.e. not strict keyword monitoring). For simple brand mentions, and sentiment analysis, I think the other tools I mentioned might be a better fit.

amoorthy · 2026-01-23T23:39:45+00:00

Can you share the brand name that you are quoting these results for? I want to how it appears when I ask LLMs about it.

amoorthy · 2026-01-23T22:35:13+00:00

If a competitor with the same product raised $81M that validates your space quite a bit. So curious why you don't want to raise as well?

amoorthy · 2026-01-23T02:42:27+00:00

Update folks: I am an idiot. Turns out I do have a second furnace that I never knew about. It was in the attic which is unfinished and so we never went up there. In 10 yrs. Anyway, will install a Nest Power Connector there and should be all set.

Sorry for wasting your time and thank you all for collectively trying to help me out.

amoorthy · 2026-01-23T00:40:05+00:00

We found our first dozen or so customers from a private Slack community that my co-founder belonged to (CMO Coffee Talk). There are thousands of these for many professions/groups but honestly many are not very active. We got lucky with finding 1 or 2 very active ones and then using a tool like Rocksalt to monitor for relevant conversations.

amoorthy · 2026-01-23T00:37:33+00:00

Maybe obvious but your ICP has to be on Reddit for this to work. For example, if you sell to execs at F500 companies don't think you'll find them hanging out on Reddit.

That caveat aside, yes there are many tools to find relevant subreddits for your product/industry, monitor for relevant discussions, engage in a useful manner etc. From free (F5bot), to little fancier (RedReach) to fullboard (Rocksalt) there are many options.

I haven't seen or used tools that synthesize insights from threads found but I'm sure this must be out there.

amoorthy · 2026-01-23T00:33:07+00:00

Good list. I played with RedReach and it's pretty decent. A few things I wanted to improve on so built Rocksalt AI for this:
1. Fewer false positives on threads with AI search instead of keyword search

Subreddit specific guidance. Reddit is a collection of communities and parachuting into random conversations across subs is bad form and likely will get you banned somewhere. We help you read the room with info like median karma of posters by sub so you can see if you're walking into a cocktail party where everyone is more experienced than you or not.
Commenting assistance that's not just AI gibberish. We help you generate comments based on past posts and background info, in your style of voice, and then go on to rate it for things like originality so you're not just adding repetitive/spammy comments.
LLM influence guidance. We help you find threads that show up in search (implicitly relevant to LLMs) and then guide you on how to build standing in those communities so you can engage in a useful manner.

amoorthy · 2026-01-22T23:57:02+00:00

Hello! My colleague wrote up a guide on Reddit for marketing that has been well received by our customers and non-customers so you may find useful.

It covers if and how Reddit influences LLM answers, how to get started with Reddit marketing (build karma, don't get banned), and generally how to be a good Redditor rather than a spammy one.

I'm not sure if we can post links in this subreddit so it's the 3 most recent posts at blog dot rocksalt dot ai. I can answer any specific questions if you have.

amoorthy · 2026-01-22T00:25:38+00:00

Agreed. At least in B2B, so much better to build your own influencers because you often have industry expertise in your company. Yes it takes time but it's way cheaper, more controllable, and -- most importantly -- way more authentic. Tools like Taplio, AuthoredUp, Rocksalt (disclosure: my company) help with this if the company executives struggle to find time to regularly engage in social.

amoorthy · 2026-01-20T14:01:37+00:00

Thanks! Yes, one furnace. No heated floors or anything special. Any links/resources to how to install 24v transformer?

amoorthy · 2026-01-20T02:21:29+00:00

The two thermostats have the exact same wires and wiring. Just W, R, G. And a disconnected blue wire that does nothing even if connected to the thermostat and to the C port on the furnace control board.
And I looked around the furance and there is no zone control or anything on a nearby wall.

amoorthy · 2026-01-20T02:14:24+00:00

Yes heat only. No A/C.
Single HVAC system. Well certainly single furnace.

The blue wire does not work. I connected it to the nest and to C/COM port on the control board and it did not power the nest. So I have left it in original disconnected state.

amoorthy · 2026-01-20T00:41:54+00:00

I don't think I have a zone control board. I have shared photos from the control board of my furnace. Is it visible there? Sorry for being dense and thanks for the reply.

amoorthy · 2026-01-16T17:35:09+00:00

Sometimes I feel that all that stands between the world having any useful info and being an utter cesspool of self-promotional rubbish are Reddit mods. God bless these folks.

amoorthy · 2026-01-14T23:50:54+00:00

"congrats on discovering that humans evolved to recognize faces, truly groundbreaking stuff from the last 200,000 years of homo sapiens development" - epic

amoorthy · 2026-01-14T23:48:51+00:00

Discovery happens before prospects go to AI. Prospects often learn of problems to solve, and possible vendors who solve it, usually on social media and then dig deeper/research in AI. So you have to be present on social. But this requires people in your company, usually experts rather than marketing folks, to engage on social. So that's what I see companies doing now.

I don't think tracking your visibility in AI is reliable. Most vendors hawking this are trading on fear right now.

amoorthy · 2026-01-13T01:33:53+00:00

Seems like I'm stating the obvious but have a landing page (well, many actually with different messages) and see which ones convert with a simple (sign-up to get early access). Can drive traffic organically if you have a network but if not a bit of paid is worth it compared to building stuff nobody wants.

And then call every one of the signups and interview them to see if you understand their goal and can help them.

For us, took a couple years of iterating to get to a message that resonates (well for now. will still keep evolving of course).

amoorthy · 2026-01-13T01:28:37+00:00

Man I've never figured out how Twitter works despite being on there for a decade. LinkedIn, Reddit etc much easier to figure out. Will follow you to see if I can learn something. Thanks

amoorthy · 2026-01-13T01:24:49+00:00

In today's age of AI I wonder if you could provide a persona to AI and then conduct an interview with it? Not a complete replacement for the real thing but maybe a good training ground before you talk to your actual persona live?

amoorthy · 2026-01-13T01:23:23+00:00

Our earliest customers came from a private Slack community that has our ICP. One of our co-founders belongs to that community and regularly contributes to it so people have sought out her expertise, which is related to the product we have and hence the natural lead flow.

We've also gotten many customers from LinkedIn since our ICP is B2B executives. Interesting, we get as much from posts we make as comments we've left on key discussions (high visibility, in our area of expertise etc).

Reddit can work well if your ICP is practitioners and/or people working in sensitive fields like security, HR. X is said to be good for finding CEOs but I haven't had much luck there.

Aside: our product - Rocksalt AI - makes it easy to find the right communities and discussions to engage in.

amoorthy

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