Your Software Generates Tasks. The Winners Will Absorb Them.
- Gregory Henson
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
The last decade of SaaS made you do the work. The next decade does the work for you.
The average knowledge worker switches between apps 1,200 times a day.
That is not productivity. That is a tax we all quietly agreed to pay.
We built the last decade of SaaS by going deep, not wide. Specialize. Reduce scope. Sell to procurement. Configure with an admin. Every product solved one slice and handed the user a new login.
The result sits on every sales rep's screen right now. Fifteen to twenty tools to do one job. They scan a badge, type notes on their phone, update a CRM nobody loves, and try to remember what was said in the room.
I have built businesses inside this model. I have invested in companies inside this model. It is broken.
The shift is from software that creates work to software that absorbs it.
You meet someone at an event. You tell your software. It does the research, drafts the follow-up, schedules the meeting, updates the CRM, joins the call, and takes the notes.
You do not open it. It just runs.
That is the whole game now. Not a prettier dashboard. Not one more integration. Software that takes the task off your plate instead of adding a field for you to fill in.
The Absorb Test.
Run your product through three questions.
Does the user have to open it, or does it run on its own? If they have to remember to use it, you built a chore.
Does it add a step or remove one? Every new screen, every new field, every "just log it here" is a step you are charging the user to take.
Does it get out of the way? The best new software is ambient. It works in the background and surfaces only when a human decision is actually required.
If you are building software in 2026 and your product still asks the user to do more work, you are building yesterday's product.
I see it in my own portfolio. The task-absorbing companies retain better and get pulled into accounts the task-generating ones cannot crack. Customers do not want another tool. They want the job done.
Build the thing that takes the work away.
