Building Solutions, Not Features: The New Mindset for SaaS Founders

[00:00:00] Jeff Mains: You mentioned 10x a couple of times, and I think technology can really be that differentiator for companies. How do you see founders overcomplicate their early SaaS products, and how do you help them course correct so that it becomes the velocity and gets them that 10x growth?

[00:00:18] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Absolutely. I think the bigger one we’ve seen is the feature race. A lot of founders just want to keep building more features , “We need all of these features because our competition has them.” The problem is, when you’re in the feature race, you’re always behind. Your competition is ahead , they have more money.

[00:00:38] Jeff Mains: Sure.

[00:00:39] Ghazenfer Mansoor: More resources, and they’re quickly building more and more. So that’s the challenge , prioritizing your product is really important. We recommend building maybe just one feature , one thing that’s unique, that’s a differentiator, that solves a core problem for your customer. Obviously you don’t want to launch just one feature that doesn’t help run independently. If you can launch one feature that solves a problem, and then gradually add others , prioritize the important ones so you can get more customers. It could start with integrations with other systems. 

Think of it this way: if you’re building another CRM or another EMR, there are already hundreds. Just building a cheaper version , which is another common thing we hear all the time, “oh, this is cheaper” , isn’t going to make the cut. But say that EMR isn’t doing a specific conversion , let’s say it’s not doing audio-to-text, just as an example.

[00:01:56] Jeff Mains: Okay, sure.

[00:01:56] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Or if your CRM isn’t integrating with certain things, or how people are recording data, or giving a report , you can create some integration initially to solve that one problem. Once you get the customer and reach those people, you can start adding more features. If your features grow gradually, you’ll migrate those customers into your real customers. But yeah, that’s a big trap , the features.

[00:02:35] Jeff Mains: Yeah, that’s a big one. I think it’s an easy one to fall into, because we think we have to have all the things the competition has, plus some new secret thing. But I like that , you can really focus on what’s missing, what’s the real problem I can solve. It’s not about the features, it’s about the problem. How can I fix this problem that other things in the market aren’t solving today?

[00:02:58] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Exactly.

[00:02:59] Jeff Mains: Yeah. What do you think about when you’re approaching a development project , what really matters, what problem to solve, and how much is enough? I think that’s always a big question. What does a launchable product look like, and how do you know when you’re there, or if you’ve overbuilt, or it’s not quite ready for primetime?

[00:03:17] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Your customers will drive it. Build only the things your customers want. Get feedback early , put a small product out, get customer feedback, and as they ask for certain features, start building. Are they willing to pay for it? That’s an easier route than building and later realizing 80% of your features aren’t being used , only 20% are. What if you’d done that research upfront, built those 20%, and put the money you’d have spent on the other 80% toward additional features those 20% of customers were actually asking for?

[00:04:03] Jeff Mains: So if we’re asking customers, how does that fit with showing them what to want versus asking them what they want? Where’s the balance there?

[00:04:13] Ghazenfer Mansoor: It’s a bit tricky. As I said earlier, sometimes customers don’t know what’s possible. Whenever you get a customer, they come up with a solution, and you ask, “Why do you want this?” As you dig deeper and do the discovery, you realize they actually want something because of one underlying problem.  They think integrating with a calendar or Outlook is going to solve their problem,

[00:04:45] Jeff Mains: Right.

[00:04:45] Ghazenfer Mansoor: ,or building a CRM would solve it, but in reality they’re doing the product part themselves , they’re providing the solutioning, and that’s not their expertise. So you want to show them what’s possible.
Sometimes you do a discovery to figure out what they want and give them that. Other times, depending on your specialty, if you really know that space well, you act as the subject matter expert who knows the customers, what they really want, and what their pain points are.
Sometimes you can come up with something, build it, and show them. We’ve seen this a lot, especially in service businesses , if you’re building something that is 10x their growth, you come up with ideas and show them, “Hey, if you do this, here’s how it’ll help you grow.”

[00:05:37] Jeff Mains: That’s so important , not just taking that service-level request for a feature, because customers don’t really want features. What they want is outcomes. When we get to that outcome, what they’re really trying to accomplish, we can figure out the right path there. Maybe the feature request is the right way, but a lot of times there are other, simpler or more elegant ways to get to that outcome than taking the feature request at face value. It’s about getting down to the outcome , what are you really trying to do, what do you want to happen when this feature is implemented?

[00:06:14] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Yeah, absolutely, totally agree. Now, with AI, things have changed , things have gotten much cheaper, and you can do things much faster. But it’s still not about speed. AI does help you get things done faster, but it’s more about efficiency and value.  If AI helps you break some of those bottlenecks and bring more efficiency into your processes, go for it. But again, you still don’t want it to turn into feature-building , too many features , because if users aren’t using those features, you’re just creating a lot more liability. Now you have a bigger codebase.  It needs upgrades, it needs maintenance, and you’re spending time on something that’s not being used daily.

[00:07:13] Jeff Mains: What role is AI playing right now in your product build-outs, and where are people not taking enough advantage of it?

[00:07:24] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Do you mind repeating it?

[00:07:24] Jeff Mains: Sure.

[00:07:48] Ghazenfer Mansoor: What role is AI playing right now in your product build-outs, and where are other companies or developers not really taking advantage of what AI can deliver?
It’s mind-blowing how AI is changing everything, especially on the development side. We heavily leverage AI-driven development , a lot of vibe coding using different tools like Cursor, Claude Code, Replit, Lovable, Bolt, UX Pilot. There are so many now.
We have a mandate in our company that everybody needs to be 10x, because if you’re not, you’re going to be beaten by the competition. I remind everybody about Blockbuster in the late nineties, Toys “R” Us, Babies “R” Us , if you’re not picking up on innovation, you’ll be left behind. The same is true in software development with AI. If we keep doing things the traditional way, we’ll be crushed by the competition.

[00:08:37] Jeff Mains: Sure.

[00:08:38] Ghazenfer Mansoor: So we decided to compete on it , to go ahead of the competition, build things that help us work faster, bring more efficiency into our processes, and deliver faster, quicker, and cheaper for our customers. That includes leveraging AI for development, testing applications, generating everything faster, and creating AI agents that automate a lot of that. I’ll give you some examples: using Claude Code and Cursor, you can create code much faster. Things that used to take months are now taking days, sometimes an hour , much faster. You can create documentation much faster, do test coverage, unit testing, automate testing of applications. You can give just prompts and create a whole UI for the application.
We built a whole healthcare scheduling application in just a few hours. We built a whole home care application in just a few hours using vibe coding. It does need tweaking to be production-ready, but you can create a lot of it much faster in our process.

If I get a lead, many times we’ll create a proof of concept before our first customer call, showing them on the call, “Hey, here’s what can be built using the tool” , whether it’s assessments, EMR integration, any of that. We’re heavily into AI throughout the company , creating documentation, creating user stories automatically from documents. Rather than manually creating user stories in Jira, you can use AI now to push those into Jira automatically. We have a requirements agent that asks you a few questions, and once you give the answers, it generates the requirements document out of it and creates mockups right out of the box. Previously you needed different people to do those tasks , now you’re doing it all yourself.

[00:11:00] Jeff Mains: Right.

[00:11:00] Ghazenfer Mansoor: That’s impacting how developers used to work. It’s changing the developer mindset , rather than a developer mindset, now you need an architect mindset, a product mindset, because how well you can articulate the problem matters most. If you can articulate the problem really well, AI is your really good friend.

[00:11:34] Jeff Mains: That’s really smart. What is the 10x blueprint or framework?

[00:11:41] Ghazenfer Mansoor: In order to do 10x, you have to do certain things. Most important: you don’t just want to bring AI into everything without a real need.

[00:11:57] Jeff Mains: Right.

[00:11:57] Ghazenfer Mansoor: You want to diagnose the bottlenecks in your process and delivery , look at everything, what the bottlenecks are. Based on that, you create AI-assisted automation frameworks targeting those bottlenecks. Then you build a proprietary system that brings more efficiency and scaling into your processes. The outcome is higher margin, better operations, better valuation , a much higher exit potential for your business.

[00:12:36] Jeff Mains: That makes a lot of sense. From your project work to scaling, and now having a top-ranked development firm , what’s your biggest “I didn’t see this coming” moment as a founder?

[00:12:54] Ghazenfer Mansoor: We got a few leads in the past few days. Last week, one lead , we asked the guy how he found us, and he said, “I searched on ChatGPT and I searched on Gemini.” Both listed Technology Rivers as the top development company for healthcare , number one ranking on both. I wasn’t expecting that. We’ve also gotten leads from Claude, from Perplexity. The whole game is changing , SEO and marketing are changing , and that’s something I wasn’t expecting.

[00:13:42] Jeff Mains: I think that’s a really good answer. That’s happening more and more, where people are actually using different AI platforms as search engines. We’ve even seen changes in Google with AI snippets and those kinds of things. That’s where the industry is going. Search engine optimization, keyword stuffing , the old way is dead. The new way is: how do we show up in AI search results? A lot of that comes down to having a unique perspective in your content, standing out, and being the obvious choice in the industry.

[00:14:18] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Absolutely.

[00:14:19] Jeff Mains: It’s much harder to game now than it was in years past.

[00:14:25] Ghazenfer Mansoor: True. In the past you could game it with linking and things like that.

[00:14:30] Jeff Mains: Right.

[00:14:30] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Now the real ones will rise , and I’m sure things will change here too, so you have to keep working, and the people who are ahead will stay visible.

[00:14:43] Jeff Mains: Yeah. As a technical founder, how do you manage the balance between client customization and building scalable, repeatable solutions?

[00:14:55] Ghazenfer Mansoor: As a founder, that’s my job , making sure we have processes in place, not just for ourselves but for our customers too. I keep an eye on KPIs and numbers, and those get reviewed for client work as well. We build internal processes for the work we do for ourselves, which helps us go through that process, and that gets pushed to the client too.

[00:15:31] Jeff Mains: Yeah, I think that’s a really difficult thing for founders. It’s really good that it’s part of your process, keeping them on track as they build, because it’s easy to customize and add special things until it becomes a monster to maintain at scale. Really focusing on building scalable, repeatable things is important , I love that you’re paying attention to that for your clients.

[00:16:00] Ghazenfer Mansoor: I’m a big process guy. Anything that’s repeated a few times, I push to simplify , build something to make it easier. That helps our customers too, because if we’re not doing it for ourselves, how would it help anyone else? The more important part is building that mindset, training people so they’re part of that process. It’s easy to build the process; the bigger challenge is execution , making sure people are actually using it. That takes training, reminders , that’s another process in itself, making sure people follow the process, which isn’t easy when you’re dealing with humans.
There will be challenges, of course, so we’re trying to identify different tools, creating processes with them, and as we learn from one challenge to the next, we keep improving.

[00:17:07] Jeff Mains: Really good. We’ve worked with a lot of startup clients , what’s maybe one myth about product development timelines you wish more founders understood?

[00:17:19] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Building a product is like building a house. Many times I hear from founders , because they’re hearing messages like, even from me, “You can build this in two hours, three hours” , that’s true, you can create POCs. But when it comes to production-ready, it’s not a one-time thing. 

We often hear from non-technical founders, or people who haven’t built a product before, or who came from a different type of business: “We need a turnkey solution we build once and it works forever.” But software is an ongoing enhancement. If you build software that needs no enhancement, that usually means your business isn’t doing well, because if you have a customer using it, they’ll keep asking for more. Whether it’s email, a spreadsheet, social networking, or anything else you use, you’re always wishing for more features, or asking “How do I do this in this process?” It’s a common misunderstanding that it’s a one-time build that works forever.

Even if you build something quicker, with the right foundation, you’ll gradually need to grow it. It’s like a house , even brand-new, things will break down gradually. You need maintenance, enhancements, and eventually bigger changes , one year landscaping, another year recessed lighting or a closet. Those are good examples I use. You build it, but you’ve got a bare-bones house, and your wishlist is closets, bathroom upgrades, and so on. As you use things, you’ll need to upgrade. It’s very similar to the software development process.

[00:19:47] Jeff Mains: It’s a great analogy , I’ve never seen a product that just works forever. No, they don’t. The tech debt, the upgrades, the maintenance , it’s ongoing, and the bigger the product and the longer it’s been around, the more of that there is.

[00:20:04] Ghazenfer Mansoor: True, true.

[00:20:04] Jeff Mains: All the things the dev said at the beginning , “Oh, I can do it quick, or I can do it right” , and you went, “Yeah, let’s just do it fast.” Those things come back to haunt you.

[00:20:15] Ghazenfer Mansoor: True, true.

[00:20:16] Jeff Mains: That’s for sure. What’s something you believed about software development five years ago that you’ve completely changed your mind about now?

[00:20:25] Ghazenfer Mansoor: AI. I never thought AI would change software development this way. This has always been the fastest-growing field , now a normal person, a layman, can build software. Obviously demand will change, everything will change.
It’s totally changed my mind in terms of the mindset shift needed. If you’re still working the same way as before, it’s going to be challenging. AI isn’t going anywhere, and the ones adapting and starting to use it now will be the most productive long-term. I think the trend now is more toward building AI agents , every business needs processes automated. So you’ll see a lot more agents , customized for QuickBooks integration, CRM, customer discovery, responding to customer queries, everything.

[00:21:59] Jeff Mains: Makes a lot of sense. Earlier you talked about building apps and going 10x, and that happens when things are used daily versus used once or downloaded and forgotten. You wrote a book coming out about that, called *Beyond the Download: How to Build Mobile Apps People Love, Use, and Share Every Day*. I love that title. Tell me more about the book, and how you build something people use all the time, not just something taking up space.

[00:22:29] Ghazenfer Mansoor: I got into mobile a long time ago, from the early days when it was just WAP-based phones. I worked with a startup building wireless communities and mobile frameworks even before the iPhone and Android came out.  When the iPhone and Android came, I got into that line and started building apps. I’ve been working in the mobile space for more than 20 years now. In the last 10 years, as I mentioned earlier, we started as a mobile app development company , our very first customer was a mobile app.

[00:23:08] Jeff Mains: Nice.

[00:23:09] Ghazenfer Mansoor: We’ve built, I’d say, close to 60 different apps in the last 10 years. From all these applications, I learned a lot, and my own expertise developed around process automation and product management , guiding and coaching customers, and learning from all of them about which strategies worked for different products.
This book is based on the experiences from all these projects, and the insights I gained along the way , I think 34 different strategies shared in the book, on how to use them to grow and scale. Many of those strategies need to be implemented as part of your app building. There are millions of apps on the Apple and Google stores , I can’t even count the apps I’ve downloaded on my phone. How many am I using every day? Very few apps make that cut. The ones that make a difference are the ones people use every day. So the book covers strategies, tricks, and tips you can use to build an app that people not only download, but use and share every day.

If your app is loved, people share it every day, use it every day, it grows , whether it’s a money-making app or an app supporting your business, whatever your end goals are, you can achieve them if you build the app the right way.

[00:25:04] Jeff Mains: Love that. As mobile and SaaS continue to blend, what does the next generation of those daily-use apps look like?

[00:25:17] Ghazenfer Mansoor: I think as the landscape changes, people are moving more toward building AI agents, because SaaS will continue, but you can build it much faster now. That means a lot of things that used to be expensive, requiring someone to raise funding to build, many businesses can now build themselves, because at the end of the day, you’re solving a problem.

SaaS will definitely continue, but it’s not about revenue or growth anymore as much as it’s about efficiency , how quickly you can get things done through automation and AI agents. That’s what will make the difference in how you build SaaS and mobile products.

[00:26:13] Jeff Mains: Makes a lot of sense. What’s your number one piece of advice for SaaS founders trying to integrate AI into their product without turning it into a science project?

[00:26:27] Ghazenfer Mansoor: There’s a lot of innovation happening on the AI side. The things people were doing differently before , whether image processing, healthcare, manufacturing, robotics , a lot is changing, so things aren’t the same as they used to be.

[00:26:54] Jeff Mains: Yeah, that’s absolutely true.

[00:26:55] Ghazenfer Mansoor: I don’t think I fully answered that for you , do you want to ask it again?

[00:27:01] Jeff Mains: Sure, we can do that.

[00:27:19] Ghazenfer Mansoor: The number one advice is the same as before: look for the problem and create a solution for it, rather than just building another one. Now that you have AI doesn’t mean you should build everything a ton of other people are building.
It’s not about doing things faster now , it’s about bringing value, what value it can create, how it can scale your business. It shouldn’t just be another tool you can build now , it should make a real difference in your business and your clients’ businesses.

[00:27:59] Jeff Mains: Makes so much sense , you’re really using it to solve a real problem, not just implementing AI because it’s cool.

[00:28:06] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Right. Now the software is being built by architects and AI agents , the old playbook is obsolete. You can’t do it the same way you used to.

[00:28:17] Jeff Mains: Very good. Where can people learn more about you and about Technology Rivers online?

[00:28:22] Ghazenfer Mansoor: My website is ghazenfer.com , G-H-A-Z-E-N-F-E-R.com, my first name. The business website is Technology Rivers , R-I-V-E-R-S, one word, .com, no dash.

[00:28:37] Jeff Mains: Excellent, we’ll make sure to link that.

[00:28:38] Ghazenfer Mansoor: On the website you can find the book, the podcast, and everything.

[00:28:45] Jeff Mains: Fantastic, we’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. Ghazenfer, it’s been such a great honor to have you on the show , super informative. Thanks for being on SaaS Fuel.

[00:28:55] Ghazenfer Mansoor: Thanks for having me. Thank you.