How to create and earn SaaS (Part I / remove all unnecessary, hit the target, experiment)

I have long wanted to speculate on the differences between creating SaaS (online) services for small and medium-sized businesses from creating classic automation systems of the same business segment, which I will begin to do today. In my terminology, a classic solution is a desktop platform solution that implements this or that functionality for PMS and can be customized for the needs of the client.

Factors affecting the development .

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Instead of the preamble, I’ll look at the creation of a new service in terms of the price of the issue / necessary resources and their economy.

In the case of SaaS, startups usually have:

a) limited budgets;

b) understanding how and for whom to do the service — full house of the functionality of the solution, classification of the automation system or the standard of the application area, some classic understanding of the rules for creating an application;

c) temporary and other restrictions - the team has to start selling quickly and not always the product corresponding to the completed Roadmap;

Each item affects the process, timing, quality of development in general. All restrictions are conditioned by the task itself and are constant, except for non-financial restrictions (clause b). In my opinion, when creating SaaS services, it is necessary to look more freely at the classical requirements for the development process, thus optimizing the rest of the fixed cost parts of the project without visible changes in the quality of the problem being solved. Those. It is not necessary to apply postulates in creating SaaS services, which worked earlier in creating classic automation systems.

Simplify services without risk to the result.

The first is to make not features, but vertical simple solutions, not even vertical ones, but closing the needs of the work of a department, a group in a company, a distributed group. In this case, the main thing to guess where to make the effort is what to automate. For example, Vasily Shabbat at the beginning of the SaaS epoch in Russia made a travel accounting service and only then realized that the service is in demand by large companies, does not sell itself, requires efforts to integrate with accounting systems and is already implemented by many conservative players.

An example of cloud services: Columbus Logistics Department My warehouse

The classic approach: more functionality - to do everything to the maximum, in the hope that suddenly someone will need the 1053rd desired function.

The second is to follow the path of “cutting off excess functionality”. What I mean by this is not following the standards, for example, ITIL and “cutting off” a large layer of solution functionality, for example, access rights. From successful examples of the latter, ASANA , whose philosophy of creators is that in a small group of employees, administration of access rights in general is not necessary - all 10 pairs of eyes understand that they have nothing in common with a team of like-minded people, and the manager sees perfectly that makes the subordinate in the "open" service space and in the office 5 to 5 meters.

Classic approach: Servis Desk is ITIL, Pink Elephant, but why is this a team of 10 people?

The third is to try to combine simple products in bundles that are not yet available, or start developing the huge Shuttle with such an unusual combination - a bundle can simply turn out to be successful. But do not experiment with Unified communications - this is already enough.

Cloud service examples: Quickme SMEOn

The classic approach: the framework of CRM or HRM or Docflow + consulting + training + changing the company's thinking ... why is it in SaaS? SaaS is designed to save!

There are chances (instead of conclusions).

I have not yet tried to talk about the technological creation of SaaS applications, which in itself is cheaper (multi-tenancy, for example) and focused on ideological things that will help simplify and cheapen the process of creation. It turned out that the first approach is a clear savings when hitting the target. The second approach is the optimization of development costs due to the uselessness of a part of the functionality of the PMS. The third is finding your way and positioning. Thus, to bring success, make a simple service - applicable by three employees of the company, leave all unnecessary and travel with one suitcase, which will be one shirt - a solution to the client's problem. Well, combine the classic and Casual in the approaches, if not scary.

! It is important that the developers of SaaS applications have a unique opportunity to experiment - to simplify their services and create a new automation philosophy.

There will be a continuation and there will be interesting guests from the developers of leading Russian SaaS services.

Alexey Kalachnikov

Blog author http://www.bootstrap24.ru/

http://Quickme.ru/

Materials series "How to create and earn on SaaS"

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/216421/

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How to create and earn SaaS (Part I / remove all unnecessary, hit the target, experiment)

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