Sam GaddisBook Sam
Menu
← All talks
Available to book

The 90% Software-Cost Teardown

A guided teardown of what a company rents, what it should keep, and what has become cheaper to own.

Format
Industry keynote, association session, or portfolio briefing
Length
30 minutes plus guided Q&A
Best for
Industry associations, private-equity portfolios, CEOs, CFOs, and operating partners
An editorial teardown of a crowded subscription stack collapsing into one company-owned operating system
Program studySam Gaddis

The decision

Which subscriptions have become economically indefensible?

Mid-market companies accumulated software one department and one renewal at a time. AI changed the cost of replacing narrow systems, but it did not make every replacement sensible. This session opens the stack, follows the money, and shows where ownership can create a real economic advantage.

Built for the group. The teardown is built for the audience's sector. Trade groups can nominate an anonymized member stack, and portfolio groups can use a pattern that appears across several companies.

Signature segment

A guided contract hunt through SaaSassin.

I walk the audience through the game we built to find contracts across a fictional company. The dossier becomes a serious software audit: annual spend, renewal dates, workflow importance, and a short list of systems worth examining.

Play SaaSassin

How it runs

The session, end to end.

  1. 01 / Tailor

    Build the sector stack

    I research the common tools, renewal patterns, and workflow friction in the audience's industry.

  2. 02 / Show

    Walk the contract hunt

    A prepared SaaSassin run turns a fictional contract hunt into a credible audit of cost and operating drag.

  3. 03 / Send

    Take the audit home

    Participants receive a private calculator and a sequence for reviewing their own stack.

What people take home

Three usable decisions.

  1. Sort the software stack into systems worth keeping, replacing, consolidating, or leaving alone.
  2. Calculate the real replacement case using subscription cost, integration drag, labor, and switching risk.
  3. Sequence one high-confidence replacement without putting a core operation at risk.

Bring it to your group

Start with the room and the decision in front of it.

Tell me who will be there, what they are wrestling with, and what a useful session would change.

Talk through the session