Saas

How'd you get into saas?

>>1094082
Saw a niche problem, solved it:) took me two years of programming on the side to get to a point where my stuff is worth paying for, now I've made it my full time job for the past 3 months, while doing a bit of consulting to pay the bills

Congrats. Also bump for interest

>>1094204
What field are you in? (marketing? optimization? mailing? etc?)

How many customers currently?

Did you take on any customers before the two years?

I know this isn't an AMA but SaaS interests me and I'd love to hear more about your setup

>>1094405
Thanks for interest:)
Indeed this is NOT an AMA, it would be very presumptuous of me since I'm still small time. If someone who's making more than beer money wants to take over the thread I'll let them lol.
I'm, broadly speaking, in ecommerce for small businesses, in a niche that's very specific and not serve by anybody else yet.
I did start beta with 2 prospective customers since last summer and realized last October that I was ready and should commit full time or end it.
I have 4 customers now (lmao). B2B sales are slow, but theoretically they are sales that stick.

>>1094648
Thanks for the response! $2800/month is an amazing start (provided you didn't give your beta testers a deal)

Do you have a plan for acquiring more customers? Are you just cold calling prospects yourself or will you hire a skilled salesman?

I believe small business SaaS is quite hard to market depending on the niche. You'll have to market more aggressively than you would if you had a more general product.

>>1094648
Can you tell us more about your software and your services?

>>1094661
So far distribution is 100% myself going to trade shows. One thing I did right is I started going as soon as I started the project, so I have good visibility and trust.

To expand my distribution channels I would indeed give commissions on sales; you gotta find the right salesman though, and I'm starting to look. The niche is closeknit enough though that word of mouth should work nicely eventually.

Indeed, I have two things going against me: small business + niche = very small market size. But that's also why I am alone on this segment; I'm coding everything with eventual expansion to bigger markets in mind.

>>1094663
I don't want to explain in detail because I want to remain anonymous, my customers probably don't want to be in business with someone who posts on lituanian embroidery forums.
The gist of the business model is that I solve a real business need, that's best solved with technology: constantly updated inventory, online payments, user permissions, accountability, etc. Those are "boring" but they translate into real money for my customers. If you want to learn what's expected from a business saas, go check out the biggest of em (so big it's even graduated to paas): Salesforce. You can get a free dev account to see what they offer; you can even build your saas on top of them and many have done so; I wouldn't advise it though.

>>1094667
Trade shows are a great idea. I didn't think of that but that's probably all you need plus a bit of business cards and making friends in the industry.

A salesman doesn't necessarily seem worth it if you're in a small industry, as if you hire the wrong one they may fuck up and ruin your reputation somewhat. Maybe some cold calling/emailing/snailmail a month or so prior to trade shows then sell your product in person.

What language did you code it in? Is it a desktop software + web software bundle or?

>>1094690
Pure web, rich frontend backed by a rest api.

How do I get started in saas? I would like to be able to earn some side income.

>>1095961
Learning to program would be a good place to start.

Alright this post is now the first edition of /saas/: Starting An Awesome Saas.

>>1096568
First step: learning to build valuable, profitable software.

1. Pick a language with a huuuuge open source ecosystem and plenty of resources online. Python, Ruby are good choices for web, thanks to Django and Rails. Don't sell Java short either. More advanced people should not care about the language besides what it will let them achieve technologically.
2. Design your feature set (we'll expand on that later)
3. We've picked a language with a large ecosystem, right? Well there you go, find opensource, or even paid software, that will shave your work by 90%. You're running a business and the truth is, your time is more valuable selling than coding. That $60 bootstrap them on wrapbootstrap will save you weeks and make your product look a lot more polished.
4. Do NOT deploy your shit on heroku or aws. You will pay out the ass. That $50 bucks you save a month by deploying on DO will be better used growing your product. Learn ansible and vagrant.

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I know how to program in 7 languages and but I just can't come up with any product that I could make a small business for...

probably means I don't have enough experience of an industry to solve any real world problems.

>>1096592
This brings us to Step 2: business model.
1. Make an honest inventory of: your experience; your connections; industries thriving in your city; industries thriving in your state.
2. Your experience: what issues have you encountered when you were working, or being served by a business, that would be best solved BY TECHNOLOGY. Be honest. If the issue is better solved by paper or a whiteboard or a process, you will never make a sale.
2. Same question to your connections; Does anyone know a particular industry well? Ideally, find a power user/ first customer before even writing your first line of code.
3. Look at your city now. Move your fat ass and go talk to the kinds of businesses that have the money to invest and the brain to recognize the need for technology. If you had anything from 1/2, try to confirm you're not crazy; if not, try to make those business owners who are giving you ideas into your close connections.
4. If you're still struggling, look at your own state; possibly relocate to the right city.
5. Now that you have the "idea", it's time to work on a business model so you know there is actual money to be made before sinking capital

>>1096608
Note that's the part where a little bit of "hustle" is necessary if you weren't lucky to have an idea yourself or through a connection.
Go to meetups, Chamber of commerce meetings, tradeshows. Go to church if that's what the business owners in your target industry do. However, do not ever deceive anyone. At this moment in time your word and your name is the only thing of value you have.

>>1096613
Alright I'm going to work.
If this thread is still up later we'll move on to Step 3: Designing business model / evalutating your market.

>>1096580
Is it possible to develop my saas in India and reap the benefits myself?

>>1096631
If your primary market's in India, sure.
If you're looking to take advantage of the cheap cost of living while selling iin the west, it depends.
Most Saas target business. Those kinds of sales don't just happen, you'll have to meet your customers or at the very least have several phone calls. They also expect fast and good support. What happens when they call you in the middle of the night?
That means you'll probably have to have people working for you in your primary market, so this implies a certain scale for your business already.
Now if you find a niche that sells purely online and accepts delay in support, all the power to you.

>>1096620
Alright I'm back. If there's not more interest after this post, I'll let the thread drop.
Step 3: Evaluating your market.
1. How many potential customers are there in your city? your state? neighbour states? US? US & Canada? you get the gist.
2. What is the average revenue of those businesses?
3. How many of these businesses are too smart/ too dump to use your potential solution? That's your addressable market, from which you've discarded the customers that are not worth going after because they'll be toxic/cost too much to acquire/not profitable.
4. What are your competitors charging?
5. What would the ROI be for your solution? How much time and money would the business save by using your solution over someone else's?

Once you've answered all these questions you'll have an idea of how much you should be charging and will be able to make projections for revenue and customer acquisition.

>>1098513
It's really interesting!

>>1098513
Yes, more please.

>>1098811
>>1098554
Hey guys! Good to know I'm not rambling to myself:)
What would you like me to touch on next? We can talk about securing power users, the technology aspect or the legal/administrative/financial aspect.
I'm travelling a lot this week so I'll post probably once a day at best.

>>1098961
Talk about Jews

>>1098961
Hey how's it's going? Congrats on what you've got going on man, I'm in a sort of similar boat right now actually. It's a SaaS edu-tech startup, few clients, not too big yet. I wish I knew more about the business side of things as only really I'm in charge of the code. What's you're favorite language/platform?