SaaS stands for Software as a Service. It is a software distribution model that is hosted and based on a cloud environment. This makes the software available to everyone over the internet on any device, removing the hassle of having to download software to your computer or devises. This software’s are noted for their flexibility. This flexibility serves as a key reason why 37% of businesses switch to cloud-based systems. Given their growing popularity, the idea of launching a product offering this software is popular one.
So, how do you build a SaaS startup? In this blog, we will answer this question, and guide you through the main stages.
- Developing an Idea
It’s important to make sure you have a clear problem to address and a solution that alleviates it. After all, if you’re not solving a problem, you don’t have a product. To do this you need to do some market research to see whether your product has a market or not. A thorough market analysis lays down the foundation of product development. A few questions you need to answer to get this are; who are your target audience, what are their main requirements and who are your competitors?
2. Write Up a Plan
After conducting your market research, it is important to brainstorm your product idea. You may include the insights collected at the market research step to build upon your original idea. This is the step where you set a plan for the product you want to build.
Following are a some important questions you should answer in your plan to know exactly what you want from your SaaS product and how you want to build it.
What does your product offer?
Who is your target audience?
Why is there a need for your product?
How to communicate your product to the target audience?
What is the budget for creating your product?
How will you monetise the SaaS product?
This is also a good step to define your SaaS requirements, meaning you have a well-defined product idea and what you want it to include/do. The highest priority features will become the basis of your minimum viable product (MVP), which will come at a later step.
3. Build Your Product and Technology Stack
Once you have a defined set of requirements for your SaaS product, next comes the step of choosing the tools and frameworks for development. Your technology stack is what is used to build and run your app.
Like any software development process, you need the right tools and frameworks to develop the client-facing aspects, aka the frontend, and the server-side, aka the backend, of the application.
For the front-end components of your product, you need to choose tools such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue.js.
For your backend, you need frameworks that are secure, scalable and fast. Some popular options are Node.js, Laravel, .Net, and Ruby on Rails. SaaS products also require a database system for backend data storage
Lastly, the most important SaaS requirement is choosing a SaaS cloud hosting service. A reliable cloud provider completes your technology stack.
Toolagen can make this step far simpler and easier for you. We have our own internal SaaS accelerator framework which allows us to build applications and MVPs quickly and smoothly. We also manage the maintenance of your databases, servers, and software.
4. Launch Your MVP
A MVP is a minimal version of your SaaS product that has the minimum number of features required for the product to solve its problem. An MVP of a SaaS product is developed to be offered to the potential customers to gauge their response to the product idea before scaling up to a complete product. When starting a SaaS business, there are two ways of how the MVP can help you validate your business idea even further: It confirms or denies the need for your SaaS product. It also identifies features that users need the most. Both of these are important for your product to be a success.
SaaS is a successful model of product development and software licensing. It offers unbound potential for innovation and growth opportunities for software providers. We hope our guide helped you understand how to build a SaaS platform!