We’re Building Our Own Email Marketing Stack. Because — Why Not?
We used 5% of the features Big SaaS had us pay for. But now we’re using Agentic AI to build what we need.
It’s not that Big SaaS has nothing to offer. It’s just that we don’t need most of it.
We run marketing campaigns for our clients and for ourselves. For years, we’ve been running them like everyone else. Using platforms like Instantly, ActiveCampaign, Marketo.
But now that we’ve gone deep into lead generation, we’re seeing that going all the way, building our own email marketing platform is totally doable.
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We’re using the power of Agentic AI to build systems that are exactly tailored to our own needs.
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It started with a simple question. Build a lead list for an email marketing campaign.
Ask your marketing department and they’ll get a SaaS platform to generate one.
As you probably know, there are companies that have scraped the web, have agreements with major social media platforms, and who knows what else, to be able to deliver targeted personal email addresses with first name last name, role, and more. At scale.
We tried them. Multiple. Very costly. Low quality.
How difficult could it be to build our own?
Turns out, using the power of AI, not too difficult.
We now have a campaign pipeline on a dedicated server, acquiring leads from legitimate sources, processing them into personalised email messages with real value.
Next step: scheduling, sending, processing replies, scheduling followups.
My colleague is an email deliverability expert. We know how to get emails into inboxes.
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It’s no coincidence that Big SaaS valuations are dropping like a rock. While Agentic AI is skyrocketing.
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📉 Salesforce dropped 30–50%
📉 HubSpot down 30–50%
📉 Mailchimp — as part of Intuit, there’s likely a similar valuation drop there, too.
Short sellers made more than $20 billion betting for the demise of Big SaaS.
Investors are leaving Big SaaS in droves, for the greener pastures of Agentic AI.
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The future of software is custom.
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Who’ll be the first to vibe-code their own operating system?
We’re not the only ones to realise that they can build their own company infrastructure around their own particular needs, wishes and aspirations.
As a small software company, we quickly realised the advantages AI could bring. Even before coding agents, we’d built our own infrastructure components: AI-powered monitoring, accounting, applications for creating and maintaining content.
But now that Agentic AI has grown mature, we’re setting our sights on higher ground.
Our penultimate goal? Replace our infrastructure with home-grown solutions.
Ultimately? Build our own agents. Run our own models.
Today, we’re doing marketing campaigns ourselves. No SaaS needed. Tomorrow? Completely own our production stack.