Nucleus Nouns
by bewal416 on 4/10/2026, 12:06:43 PM
https://ben-mini.com/2026/nucleus-nouns
Comments
by: namanyayg
Nice article Ben! I think the HN crowd would be more familiar by calling those "Entities" but I like the new perspective of all companies only handling two or three of them really well.<p>I think there is more nuance about it for the SaaS-pocalypse though. I have been talking to hundreds of B2B companies and customers are now vibe coding solutions when they need something that the platform doesn't support: a dashboard, a workflow, or an integration.<p>And once a B2B customer gets a taste of vibe coding... then it's just a matter of time before they start to think about replacing the entire SaaS completely. I have seen this play over and over again so many times in the last few months, it's honestly shocking.<p>I am working to find solutions to the SaaSpocalypse but don't want to derail from the main topic, there's more info in my profile if this has been something you're thinking about!
4/14/2026, 3:21:41 PM
by: evrimoztamur
Identifying the right taxonomy is not only an exercise in naming things, but also building the appropriate data structures and systems in your programs. I think this exercise is incomplete in the absence of studying how these nouns interact with one another.<p>I don't think that a loose-hanging 'payment intent' evokes a particular emotion, without its constituents' (credit cards, direct debits, cryptocurrencies) relationship to other nouns (customers, invoices, taxes, countries).
4/14/2026, 4:05:42 PM
by: wowczarek
Makes me wonder if a similar level of analysis was done in reverse to conceive these, hopefully not word yahtzee. At least they don't end with "ly" - the horror.
4/14/2026, 4:56:16 PM
by: jayd16
Kinda feels like identifying the key user stories with a bit too much naval gazing at the implementation.<p>That said, the implementations start to gain their own weight as user expectation grows to meet the implementation. I suppose the noun thinking is not entirely frivolous for an established app with expected core workflows and design language.
4/14/2026, 3:50:13 PM
by: interstice
Something frustrating is when a company is being _clever_ with their nouns. Sometimes it's relatively innocuous, but spending time remembering what unique name I should be searching for instead of something obvious is not my idea of a good time.
4/14/2026, 3:59:24 PM
by: Shindi
Really cool framing, never saw this broken down this way
4/14/2026, 4:22:38 PM
by: grimm1002
[dead]
4/14/2026, 3:34:27 PM