AI has rewritten software economics and levelled the field. How do tech companies stay ahead of the pack?
On 30 September, we brought together 60+ CEOs and investors for a panel with Jürgen Ingels (Founding Partner, Smartfin), Frank van Vliet (Operating Partner, Fortino Capital) and Jan Van Autreve (CEO, Protime).
Here are the five lessons from the stage that I would love to share with you.
1. The bar went up
The Rule of 40 used to be the ambition. Fortino Capital and Smartfin both said their portfolios are moving beyond it, with Rules of 60 and 80 mentioned on stage. The new target is not set in stone, but it sits well beyond 40: tech companies must move faster than before, at a fraction of the cost.
AI-native companies run with 7 to 10 people, automate most of the back office and go international from day one. Our panel cited examples of 60 to 70 percent margins alongside 20 to 30 percent growth. “Every tech CEO has to reinvent their company. Our most successful companies are rebuilt from the inside, by internal teams that try to disrupt how we have done things before.”
Jürgen Ingels added that there has never been a better time to start a company. Non-technical profiles can now build what used to take ages, so starting a company is fully democratised. As the cost of development goes down, the role of growth goes up.
Frank van Vliet added a caveat: you can develop faster, but so can your customers. A strong go-to-market and a good sales team remain essential, so you have to raise your sales game as well.
Key reflection: Where do you stand against the Rule of 40 today, and what would it take to move well beyond it? Which actions would accelerate you most, and are you tackling the hard ones first?
2. Your product is no longer your moat
You no longer need an army of developers to build a product. Neither does your competitor. Any vibe coder can build a product over a weekend, but some things take years to build: a good sales team, certifications and a place on public tender shortlists.
According to Frank van Vliet, defensibility can sit in a data layer that others cannot copy, especially when combined with 5 to 10 years of vertical knowledge built into the product. He mentioned a transport management company that sold significantly above the market price because its dataset made benchmarking possible that no competitor could match.
We often test a software company’s defensibility on three criteria:
A barrier a newcomer has to overcome: certifications, connections with other software and products, relations with suppliers.
Data that exists nowhere else and can only be built over years of experience: training on customer data, pattern recognition.
A switch that would cost your clients real time, money or risk: being embedded in core processes, so that switching software is unwelcome for users and employees.
“Our product is unique” is a response I get often. It could be, but how closely does it meet the needs of your clients, and would they stay if offered a cheaper alternative? Jan Van Autreve gave a different perspective. He stressed that customer centricity needs to be at the heart of everything you do: find new ways to respond to your customers’ pain points and beat the market. “Be in love with the problem you solve, not with the product you built.”
Key reflection: How many of the three defensibility criteria does your company meet today? Where you fall short, how could you build defensibility with your current customers or with new ones?
3. AI changes the pricing game
With AI changing go-to-market speed and product development cost, tech CEOs face pressure from two sides: new entrants in the market and in-house development teams that feel empowered. This automatically puts pressure on price points. In addition, there is a burning question: how do you price new AI features? Do you give them away, or do you pass through the token cost? Both are wrong.
Speaking to founders at our event and at WeLoveSaaS, it is clear that there is no straight answer on how to price AI. The core is understanding the value you provide to your clients and how your added value grows with more functionality. When you measure willingness to pay (WTP), you capture both the value you add and the alternatives each segment has. That translates into a different price for each segment.
Our panel agreed that companies pay too little attention to pricing as a growth lever. Frank van Vliet noted that companies rarely reprice, even when they keep adding value, and that AI makes value-based pricing both more accessible and more urgent. Keep in mind that when you change markets, products or segments, you also change how clients perceive the value you deliver, and therefore your price.
Key reflection: Does the price you ask in each segment reflect the value you deliver? When did you last review your pricing strategy? And are you getting the most out of your current customers, the easiest ones to sell to?
4. Don’t be afraid to buy
All panel members agreed that M&A is the most underused of all software value creation levers. Jan Van Autreve put it simply: “In Belgium, we need to buy, not sell.”
Jürgen Ingels shared his best practices for a buy-and-build strategy: use equity as acquisition currency, and buy small regional players serving the same customer base so you can accelerate international market entry. Do this ten times, and international expansion takes 6 to 8 months instead of 80.
M&A doesn’t necessarily mean buying other software companies. We have seen several B2B SaaS companies buy service-based players for their customer base and onboard those customers onto their platform. They buy at lower services multiples and exit at higher software multiples.
Key reflection: If you were to start an M&A strategy, who would you buy and why? Which partnerships haven’t you considered yet, and what could you set in motion in the next two months?
5. Smaller teams, stronger founders
The teams of the future are smaller. They automate the back office, hire A-players and truly understand the process they automate.
According to Jürgen Ingels, A-player founders attract other A-players. People want to work where there is a clear, bold ambition. Jan Van Autreve added that we have the talent, great universities and a leading tech scene, but we are too modest to go after international markets.
I want to take Jürgen’s point and draw the parallel to our consulting business. We are a small team, currently serving clients in three countries, and we are looking to expand further internationally. The future of service business is purely digital. As software development democratises, my vision is that we can build tools and insights for repeatable B2B SaaS challenges. The pyramid that consulting used to require is gone. What does not change is that the team you build has to consist of A-players.
Key reflection: Are you working with an A-team today, and which decisions would it take to get there? Does your ambition come through in how you recruit, and where does your recruitment strategy fall short?
What’s next
Several of these questions came up as concrete cases at the tables. If one of them is on your desk, book a call.