Give Into the Vibes: What My First Week at Everest Taught Me

My Journey Begins at Everest Systems

This week I joined Everest Systems, a company with the goal of becoming a leader in the notoriously difficult ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) market. In its most basic form, an ERP is a system that manages the flow of money in and out of a business. Every company needs one, and the market is currently dominated by software giants like SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Workday, and Sage. Everest's mission to carve out space among these established players is wildly ambitious, and that's what excites me about this opportunity.

What makes this moment particularly significant is the timing. As markets experience volatility and businesses face mounting pressure to cut costs, the traditional approach to business software is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Everest is positioned to address this exact pain point.

Discovering "Vibe Coding"

Last week, our development team discussed a term increasingly popular today that initially made me cringe: "Vibe Coding." I almost immediately dismissed it as another GenZ TikTok trend I'd never understand. I'm glad I didn't.

"Vibe Coding" refers to developers increasingly relying on AI to write application code. The term was popularized by Andrej Karpathy, a well-known AI researcher who described it as, "you fully give into the vibes, and forget the code even exists." An interesting way to say that you write a prompt in an AI tool, and it generates the code for you.

In sales, it's increasingly common to use AI to research a customer's business, refine emails, and streamline communications. Vibe Coding applies this same concept to the everyday work of software engineers and beyond. Increasingly, applications today are being generated, at least partially, through some form of Vibe Coding

But the implications extend far beyond developer productivity, Vibe Coding fundamentally changes the economics of business software in ways that could be transformative during our current economic downturn.

The Problem with Traditional Business Software

To understand why this matters, we need a brief history lesson (which may be familiar to many of you, but bear with me).

Business applications fundamentally automate one or several business processes. They typically address pain points in either back-office functions (Finance, IT, HR) or front-office operations (Sales, Marketing, Services).

The problem? Traditional software vendors force businesses to adapt their processes to fit within rigid, pre-defined frameworks. This approach creates three significant challenges:

• Expensive customization projects when business needs don't align with software capabilities

• Ongoing costs as businesses must purchase additional modules and services to meet evolving requirements

• Diversion of valuable IT and engineering resources toward maintaining complex applications rather than developing strategic business accelerators

In today's economic climate, where every dollar counts and agility determines survival, this inflexible approach is increasingly untenable.

The SaaS Revolution: First Wave of Democratization

Throughout my career, I've sold SaaS (Software as a Service) or cloud applications. Before the SaaS revolution, using business software required companies to own hardware—servers, storage, etc. This significant expense limited business applications to organizations that could afford the necessary infrastructure. Consequently, smaller businesses like my parents' auto repair shop continued keeping financial records on paper in filing cabinets.

Just before 2000, pioneering SaaS companies like NetSuite and Salesforce emerged. Unlike their predecessors, these companies hosted the hardware themselves and provided application access via the internet. This subscription-based model required far less upfront investment, democratizing access to business applications for smaller companies that previously couldn't afford them. Initially, concerns arose about security, scalability, and the long-term profitability of the SaaS business model.

By the time I entered the tech industry in 2012, security and scalability concerns had largely been addressed. They're rarely even mentioned today. Profitability took longer to achieve, and many SaaS companies still struggle with it. If this post resonates, perhaps I'll write another explaining that journey.

The SaaS Profit Trap

Companies like Salesforce, NetSuite, and Workday eventually became highly profitable by expanding their software to additional business areas. Salesforce, for instance, began with sales automation but ultimately built a platform that automated critical functions across marketing, customer support, services, and more.

Here's the catch: their profitability model depends on selling more applications, modules, and services to existing customers. This creates a fundamental misalignment between vendor and customer interests:

• Vendors are incentivized to build and sell more applications, regardless of customer need

• Customers are forced to purchase entire modules when they may only need a fraction of the functionality

• Businesses must adapt their processes to fit the software, not the other way around

• Implementation and customization costs often exceed the actual software license fees

In a thriving economy, businesses might absorb these inefficiencies. But in today's market meltdown, where companies are scrutinizing every expense and seeking maximum operational flexibility, this model is increasingly unsustainable.

The Next Evolution: AI and Vibe Coding as Economic Game-Changers

Having worked exclusively in SaaS sales, I've been immersed in the benefits of this business model throughout my career. In 2023, the CEO at HighRadius, one of my former employers, made the bold claim that SaaS software would be dead by 2030. Most people, myself included, thought this was dramatic. Then earlier this year, Microsoft's CEO made a similar statement.

This is where everything ties back to Vibe Coding and our current economic reality. Just as SaaS democratized access to business applications, Vibe Coding is now democratizing application development itself. It's entirely possible that in the not-too-distant future, you won't need any engineering background to develop an application.

The implications for cost savings are enormous:

• Businesses can build exactly what they need, when they need it

• Custom functionality no longer requires expensive development resources

• Companies can adapt software to their processes, not vice versa

• The total cost of ownership decreases while business value increases

In a market where cash conservation is paramount, this approach offers a compelling alternative to the bloated, expensive solutions offered by incumbents.

Everest's Approach: Flexibility and Cost Efficiency When It Matters Most

Everest is embracing this shift through "Live Sandbox," a patented technology that allows users to create a production-like environment for development, testing and validation with a single click. We're enabling customers to use Professional Vibe Coding to safely build application extensions or entirely new applications themselves; all the while the Everest platform will provide the guarantees and guardrails that the applications can safely fulfill the compliance and regulatory requirements, including the correct management of the underlying accounting.

This approach fundamentally challenges how traditional SaaS companies generate revenue through expanding services and increasing customer spending over time. Instead, we're empowering businesses to:

• Adapt quickly to changing market conditions without expensive software changes

• Pay only for what they actually need and use

• Reduce implementation timelines from months/years to days/weeks

• Achieve faster ROI in an environment where cash flow is critical

In today's economic climate, where businesses must do more with less, Everest's approach offers precisely the flexibility and cost efficiency that companies desperately need.

The Future of Business Software in Lean Times

This approach fundamentally challenges how traditional SaaS companies generate revenue. While they depend on selling more applications and services to grow, Everest is building a platform that empowers businesses to extend their own solutions at a fraction of the cost.

As markets continue to fluctuate and businesses face unprecedented pressure to optimize costs while maintaining competitiveness, solutions that offer flexibility and efficiency will win. Vibe Coding isn't just a technical curiosity, it's an economic imperative that will reshape how businesses approach software in the lean times ahead.

Everest might be early to this paradigm shift for ERP, but if the momentum behind AI and Vibe Coding continues to build, we certainly won't be alone for long. The question isn't whether this transformation will happen, but which businesses will adapt quickly enough to benefit from it.

Thanks for reading my thoughts on this exciting new chapter. I'd love to hear your perspective on it!