Creating a SaaS product can get very complicated, very quickly. There are a lot of moving parts from technical to business decisions. And if any one of them isn’t right, your SaaS might not get funded. In this guide, we’re going to tell you how we’ve partnered with our clients to help them create a SaaS product that VCs want to fund and people will actually want to use.
Let’s get right into it, with the first step, finding your SaaS product’s value proposition.
1. What’s your SaaS product’s value proposition?
There’s no point building something nobody wants. Therefore, before writing a line of code you need to define what value your SaaS product will bring to the market. You need to identify and understand the problem you’re trying to solve.
Once you’ve identified what you intend to solve, you need to know who you’re solving it for. You can start identifying your target users groups. You should understand this audience in terms of demographics, psychology and observed behaviour. Your design team will eventually have to create UX Personas around these target groups.
How is your SaaS Product better than the current solutions?
Now you that your problem statement is defines and is being solved, it’s vital to outline how your product will stand apart from your competition. You value proposition has to be compelling to ask your users to switch from current solution and adopt your SaaS product.
Sum up your value proposition in an easy to understand elevator pitch. The elevator pitch should be simple and crystal clear. It should instantly convey what your value is and why your SaaS product is worth adopting.
Once you have that, you’re ready for the next step.
2. Assessing the assumptions:
The next step is to assess the assumptions about your target market, the problems they face and solutions they are using currently.
List down all the assumptions and test or validate them through market research or UX research. One can start by researching the current solutions to confirm the assumptions that have already been validated. Next assumptions are ones that can only be tested/validated through building a MVP.
Define and identify the KPIs to measure the validity of your assumptions eg: adoption rates, expected engagement ratio, etc. With this, you’re ready for the next step: build something that validates those ideas and assumptions as quickly as possible.
3. Validate Your SaaS Product idea:
Create the list of features to be included in the first version of your SaaS product. Include only the features that are required to validate your idea. Match this with the elevator pitch and the value proposition that we defined earlier.
Leave any features that don’t showcase your SaaS value proposition for later iterations. This step should leave you with a concise set of features that put solving your users’ problems first.
Once you have them, you’re ready to move on to the first stage of developing – building MVP for your SaaS product: choosing the right tech stack.
4. Choosing Tech Stack for your SaaS Product:
There are several popular technologies and approaches that are used in making SaaS products. Even though we are building an MVP, it is crucial to make an informed decision on the tech stack you would use, as these technical decisions at this stage are also business decisions.
For frontend, modern frameworks such as React, Vue.js are preferred choice. In terms of backend development, it’s easier to start with Node.js or Django. For databases popular options include MySQL, PostgreSQL and MongoDB.
These frameworks have risen in popularity as they’re lightweight, allow for high performance at a lower cost and allow to scale-up with more ease.
Finally, being a SaaS product, you will need a cloud service provider. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft Azure are the top choices due to their reliability and flexibility.
Once you’ve identified the tech stack you think is right for you, it’s time to find some top developers to help you build it.
With these being the most popular stacks for SaaS products, you’ll probably have an easier time onboarding talent. Even then if you wish to seek more advice on choosing the right tech stack for your SaaS product, feel free to send us a message. We’ll be happy to put you in touch with someone from our technical team to answer any questions you may have.
Building your SaaS Product Development Team:
When it comes to finding the right technical stakeholders to build your SaaS product, you have three options.
- Find a CTO/Technical Co-Founder
- Hire a team of Freelance Developers
- Work with a high-quality SaaS Product Development Company
Having a technology stakeholder on your team who has the domain expertise is deal when starting out to build a SaaS product and growing your technical team is, undoubtedly, invaluable.
With time-to-market always being a concern, many entrepreneurs will instead choose to build the first version of their product with a SaaS Product development company. It’s critical that any technical stakeholder you choose aligns with your product and business vision. More importantly, ensure they align with your product and business vision and get behind the “why” of your SaaS product.
Once you’ve found the right technical stakeholders, built and rigorously tested your SaaS product, it’s time to move on to the next step – the launch.