Is SaaS Dead? AI, Vertical Moats, and the Future of Venture with Joe Mancini
Triangle Podcasts
This episode is a big one. There’s a lot of noise right now around AI, venture, and whether SaaS is fundamentally broken. Public markets are re-rating software companies. Seed rounds are shifting. Pricing models are changing. And founders are asking the same question:
“Are we toast?”
Joe Mancini from Front Porch is in a unique position to answer that. His firm sits inside dozens of funds and startups across the Southeast and beyond. He sees what’s working, and what’s not, in real time. So we dug into the thesis behind their “SaaS is Dead” piece, what it actually means, and what founders should be doing right now.
Highlights covered
Why SaaS is being re-rated in public markets
Whether this is permanent or cyclical
AI-native vs. AI-immigrant companies
The collapse (and split) of the traditional “seed” round
Why vertical SaaS may explode in this era
How founders should think about churn in the AI era
Internal resistance to AI adoption (and why it’s dangerous)
What venture firms are actually looking for right now
The next decade belongs to founders who deeply understand their vertical, obsess over customer value, and move fast enough to build moats before the standards settle.
Timestamps:
07:00 – From sports radio to venture capital
10:30 – The hybrid fund model explained
16:50 – Why they wrote “Yes, SaaS Is Dead”
18:00 – The SaaS public market re-rating
21:00 – The split in seed investing
23:30 – AI-native vs AI-immigrant companies
27:00 – The 3-layer cycle of every tech revolution
30:00 – The 2x2: where opportunity lives now
33:00 – Why vertical beats horizontal right now
38:00 – Internal AI adoption is non-optional
39:30 – The shift from seat pricing to performance pricing
51:00 – What actually counts as a moat in AI
Where to Find Joe Mancini:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpmancini/
Front Porch Venture Partners: https://www.frontporchvp.com/
Where to Find Scot Wingo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/
Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/
X: https://x.com/scotwingo
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This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by Triangle Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.
We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:
Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org
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Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/