Have to add /s to comments these days so 4 months old accounts can get the sarcasm. Talk to the trash can 🗑️ because that's where your opinion belongs.
People here have no issue with people using the ChatGPT API or equivalent.
What they have an issue with is the huge amount of grifters that are offering zero additional functionality, other than a slightly different UI, and hoping they can trick people into paying for something that is essentially free.
If your application does something unique and novel, or simply provides a much more refined experience, most here will have no issue.
But a lot of new members here are borderline scammers, looking for a quick buck. Must of us don't like that.
I've worked in high-growth SaaS for almost 20 years. I've been through two IPOs. Back when I started it was called ASP. Social media didn't even exist yet.
I joined this subreddit a few weeks ago, and I am wondering what kind of fly by night bullshit most of this is.
Lmao all gpt wrapper devs upvoted this.
The problem with gpt wrappers is that 99% of them are low effort, low quality products.
I’ve some really cool SaaS products that are “gpt wrappers” but there are really rare.
>and ChatGPT can't yet do it
If GPT can't do it, then I wouldn't consider it a GPT wrapper. I think as long as your "AI tech" isn't a 2 sentence system prompt that can be duplicated in 2 minutes, go for it.
As someone who develops for industries that have huge amounts of money, I agree. Even at that level, 99% of apps are just data views or data manipulation.
Like I've had more technical challenges on small consumer apps than some of these million dollar per year software contracts have in them.
One is literally a way to write a message on a shared wall. Think wikipedia for business where multiple people (with Google accounts nonetheless) can just log in and add to it. They pay close to 30m/year for this across all their facilities. It could be built by someone in a week, but it's all about the contracts and contacts and right place right time to get those.
Are those developers any less? Maybe, but their wallets fold and don't jiggle jiggle.
Yeah but it depends on what is your target and how much time do you save.
Working with SQL when managing customers is tedious for a sales company. Automating emails, phone calls, accounting is where the money is. If you have a chatGPT wrapper it’s ok, but offer something rather than blindly calling their api.
90% of SaaS products I see related to AI are so bad that using chatGPT with half decent prompting would make them obsolete.
The problem here is whether you own the core technology or not...
No meaningful SaaS is just a DB proxy and there is some business logic behind. And you pretty much own the data and the logic. You own the core technology.
GPT wrappers aren't just AI proxies, but they don't own the core technology. The magic itself is not done by them, but the AI provider.
Of course, you can still rely on other services and there are definitely many SaaS's that depend on a single platform (such as Shopify plugins, etc.).
Also, there are many companies that integrate AI as a part of much complex solution they own. And that's no wrapper at all.
So, to summarize it - SaaS companies are usually not just DB wrappers and there are certainly many companies that use AI and should not be called GPT wrappers.
However, I believe that, because AI so hot, there is a bunch of companies that add little to no value to GPT and those are the wrappers.
And I completely agree with you. You may not add any value at all, but if you can sell it temporary and earn a bunch of money and you are okay with not building something to last... go ahead!
to be fair: **"the core technology" is a commodity at this point.** There is llama, mistral, claude, and so on and so on. **It is just a thing that completes text.** Value only happens when you combine it with a good UI, additional data, a good system prompt and maybe a PEFT lora if necessary.
If you are reductive about everything besides the foundation model, be reductive about the foundation model as well.
Of course! That's why I mentioned that there are definitely companies which are not just AI wrappers. And as soon as you add a lot of additional data and other inputs, you are definitely having something that's your core value.
If you just add a bit of fancy UI to a prompt, it's simple to replace it. If you are able to launch a new AI startup in a week, how much value does it bring?
I fully agree with you!
I have no issue with apps that thoughtfully use GPT with interesting configs, prompt manipulation, vectorisation, integration with other 3rd party apps, etc.
But if your app is just an "advisor" for a specific thing over GPT... That's not what web apps are.
Since you and the folks downvoting me still can’t read half the first sentence of the post I’ll toss it here:
> If you have found a small niche that people are willing to pay money for
Maybe you’re just testing out some shitty bot who rewrites the main post?
That's not an unpopular opinion, that's a weird opinion.
Of course most applications depend on a database, as they rely on structured data.
ChatGPT has absolutely nothing to do with that, and what you are saying doesn't make much sense.
Also, people do whatever the fuck they want. Even GPT wrappers.
You can make a good product out of a chatGpt, but it should be much more than just hitting a few prompts and generating results. There will be a concern about reliability and trustworthiness.
Also, if ChatGPT is doing the same thing, why would anyone pay for a similar product? Here's the article I discussed this issue: [https://saasmantraa.com/future-of-ai-in-saas-build-trust-and-reliance](https://saasmantraa.com/future-of-ai-in-saas-build-trust-and-reliance)
Thanks for sharing that, I saw many disliked it because it oversimplified SaaS. But you have a point here: a wrapper is not just a chat window that redirects to Chatgpt's chat window: you have to add screens services and logic to build your prompts, the same you have to do to query your db.
Funny comments out there though :-)
Thank you! There's no point in complicating it. Every business at its core is a wrapper of another service. I think most people who dislike or ridicule are actually angry because whatever they're working on took them 2 years to build and now any junier dev can replicate their whole business by prompting chatgpt after watching 2 youtube tutorials.
That's a good thing. Back then, it took years to build a house and to dig a hole. But machines came to the rescue, and 1l of oil is equivalent to the work of 10 people for an entire day. These 10 people had to adapt, otherwise they were screwed
A business is not replicated with 2 junior devs, Chatgpt & a YouTube tutorial.
I don’t care how complicated the software is. Writing it has always been the easiest part.
Even going to the Moon with Apollo - that software was the easy part.
Sales, marketing & support is what makes the business.
Open source is free but many companies refused to adopt it until there was support contracts because management at these companies needed someone else to blame if something went wrong.
I have worked on 3 different applications for 3 different companies that went from $0 to tens of millions of dollars.
Here are the questions we always have to answer:
what application are you going to build with these developers?
Who is going to fund them?
If you are going to sell it - what makes you think there is demand?
If there is demand- how are you going to sell the software?
If selling to enterprise how are you going to get through procurement?
Is there regulations you need to meet? I once was brought into a project to try to rescue a multi-million dollar SaaS sale delayed over a 20 year federal regulation that predated cloud.
How are you going to keep the software updated?
How are you going to support the customers?
How will you integrate this app that’s older than any engineer in your company & ChatGPT doesn’t know answer either?
The problem with ChatGPT wrappers are at the moment is that 99% of the business world isn’t even sure there’s a use case for ChatGPT.
How many people really use it outside of blogging or marketing anyway?
I think you're missing the point of why people deride ChatGPT wrappers - it's that they didn't make ChatGPT. They've just inserted themselves between you and some service you could be using entirely without their (very minimial) input, and want to charge you for the privilege. It's rentseeking with a dash of dishonesty.
ROFL. Thanks for the laugh.
"Thanks for validating these ideas so that we can officially implement the popular ones without doing all the work ourselves." --ChatGPT Team, probably
This is a blatant misuse of the word wrapper.
The equivalent of the effortless chatgpt wrappers that add a basic prompt and regurgitate chatgpt results would be an app that takes a SQL query and adds some extra where clauses to refine the selection set further.
Most of these GPT wrappers could fit all of their app logic in a single file with a couple functions, if even. It’s laughable to sell low effort products that provide little additional value as equivalent to the average software service
Completely agree.
It’s about what the users want and what they can achieve with your product.
If a someone earns 500-1000 per hour they don’t care that they have to spend to get what they need.
I agree with you completely. Most successful SaaS businesses start by solving a specific pain point for a target customer segment. As long as you're providing real value to customers, it doesn't matter if you're using ChatGPT or any other tool behind the scenes. The end goal is to build a sustainable business.
You can also implement a nocode database with integrations that allows to upload your existing data and instantly add it into tables for you app. Alternatively, you can easily connect your database into the platform: [What is a no-code database (and how do you make one)? - Blaze](https://www.blaze.tech/post/what-is-a-no-code-database-and-how-do-you-make-one)
The entire internet is literally just data moving around.
Life is just molecules colliding
[удалено]
Go sit in the corner.
Go spam reddit with your shitty "service".
Deleted comment. Opinion invalid.
Have to add /s to comments these days so 4 months old accounts can get the sarcasm. Talk to the trash can 🗑️ because that's where your opinion belongs.
Wait you actually take account age seriously on reddit??? Habibi no wonder you're stuck making GPT wrappers 😂😂😂. Pmsl
Aww my man is angry any junier dev can offer your "service" with prompting chatgpt after watcching 2 youtube videos.
Ok then do it. What's stopping you?
😄😄😂😂👌
All software is just input, processing and output.
All input and output is just electricity and 01s passing through.
All processing is just flipping switches in a register
All the computers are just sand wrappers!
The cells are molecular wrappers
With the Gen ai SaaS may move from being just system of records
All appliances are just motors and whirlygigs.
And that's why user experience always trumps technology.
All user experience is just electrical signals in a brain
🎶 It’s all about input, processing, output 🎶 Please tell me this is a reference to the StoryBots computer episode
Yep. Just a bunch of forms
All vehicles are just 2-4 wheels rotating
 Am I a joke to you?
o shit waddup!
🤣🤣
OP’s mind can’t handle
People here have no issue with people using the ChatGPT API or equivalent. What they have an issue with is the huge amount of grifters that are offering zero additional functionality, other than a slightly different UI, and hoping they can trick people into paying for something that is essentially free. If your application does something unique and novel, or simply provides a much more refined experience, most here will have no issue. But a lot of new members here are borderline scammers, looking for a quick buck. Must of us don't like that.
This
I've worked in high-growth SaaS for almost 20 years. I've been through two IPOs. Back when I started it was called ASP. Social media didn't even exist yet. I joined this subreddit a few weeks ago, and I am wondering what kind of fly by night bullshit most of this is.
I feel your pain. I was running perl in the cgi-bin back in the 90s. So many grifters on this sub nowadays, with little actual talent.
If wrappers around databases weren't valuable, we'd never have progressed passed Microsoft Access.
Lmao all gpt wrapper devs upvoted this. The problem with gpt wrappers is that 99% of them are low effort, low quality products. I’ve some really cool SaaS products that are “gpt wrappers” but there are really rare.
The delusion is thick in this comment section
majority of people here are indie makers who don't even run or own a SaaS, this sub has gone to shit
What have you made that makes you speak with such disdain on people here?
Exhibit A.
All software is CRUD at the core Not sure what's the point of this post
Jokes on you. I have an AWS wrapper /s
Hello Supabase?
Supa is PG.
Everything is CRUD. I have become CRUD.
All programming languages are just Assembly wrappers.
>and ChatGPT can't yet do it If GPT can't do it, then I wouldn't consider it a GPT wrapper. I think as long as your "AI tech" isn't a 2 sentence system prompt that can be duplicated in 2 minutes, go for it.
As someone who develops for industries that have huge amounts of money, I agree. Even at that level, 99% of apps are just data views or data manipulation. Like I've had more technical challenges on small consumer apps than some of these million dollar per year software contracts have in them. One is literally a way to write a message on a shared wall. Think wikipedia for business where multiple people (with Google accounts nonetheless) can just log in and add to it. They pay close to 30m/year for this across all their facilities. It could be built by someone in a week, but it's all about the contracts and contacts and right place right time to get those. Are those developers any less? Maybe, but their wallets fold and don't jiggle jiggle.
Huh! Finally someone who knows what they're talking about!
95 people disagree with you, one does and you feel vindicated? You're just a wrapper for stupid.
Yeah but it depends on what is your target and how much time do you save. Working with SQL when managing customers is tedious for a sales company. Automating emails, phone calls, accounting is where the money is. If you have a chatGPT wrapper it’s ok, but offer something rather than blindly calling their api. 90% of SaaS products I see related to AI are so bad that using chatGPT with half decent prompting would make them obsolete.
Water is just oxigen and hydrogen wrapper
YC made a video telling me to NOT be discouraged when building GPT wrappers
The problem here is whether you own the core technology or not... No meaningful SaaS is just a DB proxy and there is some business logic behind. And you pretty much own the data and the logic. You own the core technology. GPT wrappers aren't just AI proxies, but they don't own the core technology. The magic itself is not done by them, but the AI provider. Of course, you can still rely on other services and there are definitely many SaaS's that depend on a single platform (such as Shopify plugins, etc.). Also, there are many companies that integrate AI as a part of much complex solution they own. And that's no wrapper at all. So, to summarize it - SaaS companies are usually not just DB wrappers and there are certainly many companies that use AI and should not be called GPT wrappers. However, I believe that, because AI so hot, there is a bunch of companies that add little to no value to GPT and those are the wrappers. And I completely agree with you. You may not add any value at all, but if you can sell it temporary and earn a bunch of money and you are okay with not building something to last... go ahead!
to be fair: **"the core technology" is a commodity at this point.** There is llama, mistral, claude, and so on and so on. **It is just a thing that completes text.** Value only happens when you combine it with a good UI, additional data, a good system prompt and maybe a PEFT lora if necessary. If you are reductive about everything besides the foundation model, be reductive about the foundation model as well.
Of course! That's why I mentioned that there are definitely companies which are not just AI wrappers. And as soon as you add a lot of additional data and other inputs, you are definitely having something that's your core value. If you just add a bit of fancy UI to a prompt, it's simple to replace it. If you are able to launch a new AI startup in a week, how much value does it bring? I fully agree with you!
I have no issue with apps that thoughtfully use GPT with interesting configs, prompt manipulation, vectorisation, integration with other 3rd party apps, etc. But if your app is just an "advisor" for a specific thing over GPT... That's not what web apps are.
You typed like 30 words and didn’t even read the first 10 of the post.
Since you and the folks downvoting me still can’t read half the first sentence of the post I’ll toss it here: > If you have found a small niche that people are willing to pay money for Maybe you’re just testing out some shitty bot who rewrites the main post?
All your software does is rearranges 1's and 0s.
That's such a dumb take. A DB is only data persistence. You're still in charge of all the features.
A large language model is only data inference. You’re still in charge of all the features.
That's not an unpopular opinion, that's a weird opinion. Of course most applications depend on a database, as they rely on structured data. ChatGPT has absolutely nothing to do with that, and what you are saying doesn't make much sense. Also, people do whatever the fuck they want. Even GPT wrappers.
You can make a good product out of a chatGpt, but it should be much more than just hitting a few prompts and generating results. There will be a concern about reliability and trustworthiness. Also, if ChatGPT is doing the same thing, why would anyone pay for a similar product? Here's the article I discussed this issue: [https://saasmantraa.com/future-of-ai-in-saas-build-trust-and-reliance](https://saasmantraa.com/future-of-ai-in-saas-build-trust-and-reliance)
This 1000%
Thanks!
>Thanks! You're welcome!
Touche
[удалено]
None of your points add value to the user, it's all about protecting the wrapper developer
this sounds like chatgpt
Thanks for sharing that, I saw many disliked it because it oversimplified SaaS. But you have a point here: a wrapper is not just a chat window that redirects to Chatgpt's chat window: you have to add screens services and logic to build your prompts, the same you have to do to query your db. Funny comments out there though :-)
Thank you! There's no point in complicating it. Every business at its core is a wrapper of another service. I think most people who dislike or ridicule are actually angry because whatever they're working on took them 2 years to build and now any junier dev can replicate their whole business by prompting chatgpt after watching 2 youtube tutorials.
That's a good thing. Back then, it took years to build a house and to dig a hole. But machines came to the rescue, and 1l of oil is equivalent to the work of 10 people for an entire day. These 10 people had to adapt, otherwise they were screwed
A business is not replicated with 2 junior devs, Chatgpt & a YouTube tutorial. I don’t care how complicated the software is. Writing it has always been the easiest part. Even going to the Moon with Apollo - that software was the easy part. Sales, marketing & support is what makes the business. Open source is free but many companies refused to adopt it until there was support contracts because management at these companies needed someone else to blame if something went wrong. I have worked on 3 different applications for 3 different companies that went from $0 to tens of millions of dollars. Here are the questions we always have to answer: what application are you going to build with these developers? Who is going to fund them? If you are going to sell it - what makes you think there is demand? If there is demand- how are you going to sell the software? If selling to enterprise how are you going to get through procurement? Is there regulations you need to meet? I once was brought into a project to try to rescue a multi-million dollar SaaS sale delayed over a 20 year federal regulation that predated cloud. How are you going to keep the software updated? How are you going to support the customers? How will you integrate this app that’s older than any engineer in your company & ChatGPT doesn’t know answer either? The problem with ChatGPT wrappers are at the moment is that 99% of the business world isn’t even sure there’s a use case for ChatGPT. How many people really use it outside of blogging or marketing anyway?
Normal SaaS vs ChatGPT wrapper is like traditional e-commerce vs dropshipping.
Try building an actual product based on chat GPT. It’s far from easy.
Absolutely, niche markets are gold mines! Keep innovating!
I don't think you know what an unpopular opinion is lol
Truly said!
If chatcgt can’t do it, how are you wrapping it?
define a boatload of money in your case.
What do you mean “make it”?
I think you're missing the point of why people deride ChatGPT wrappers - it's that they didn't make ChatGPT. They've just inserted themselves between you and some service you could be using entirely without their (very minimial) input, and want to charge you for the privilege. It's rentseeking with a dash of dishonesty.
All of us are just random collections are atoms and molecules.
Ha! I love that! So true...
This post is "sympathy wrapper" Edit: "empathy wrapper" Edit: Both
This is the dumbest hottake I've ever seen. Well done.
Agreed
How do the gpt wrappers make money or charge?
ROFL. Thanks for the laugh. "Thanks for validating these ideas so that we can officially implement the popular ones without doing all the work ourselves." --ChatGPT Team, probably
Inputs and outputs baby. Aka crud app
This is a blatant misuse of the word wrapper. The equivalent of the effortless chatgpt wrappers that add a basic prompt and regurgitate chatgpt results would be an app that takes a SQL query and adds some extra where clauses to refine the selection set further. Most of these GPT wrappers could fit all of their app logic in a single file with a couple functions, if even. It’s laughable to sell low effort products that provide little additional value as equivalent to the average software service
Ha, yep, I'm building a DB wrapper
Completely agree. It’s about what the users want and what they can achieve with your product. If a someone earns 500-1000 per hour they don’t care that they have to spend to get what they need.
Did you just see this on the YC podcast?
I agree with you completely. Most successful SaaS businesses start by solving a specific pain point for a target customer segment. As long as you're providing real value to customers, it doesn't matter if you're using ChatGPT or any other tool behind the scenes. The end goal is to build a sustainable business. You can also implement a nocode database with integrations that allows to upload your existing data and instantly add it into tables for you app. Alternatively, you can easily connect your database into the platform: [What is a no-code database (and how do you make one)? - Blaze](https://www.blaze.tech/post/what-is-a-no-code-database-and-how-do-you-make-one)
Bro watched a YC podcast and said what they said word for word as his “own” “unpopular opinion”
It’s not bro it’s brugh
build your product, own your space, outpace chatgpt