Key Considerations for Launching Your SaaS Product

Standing out with your new software as a service (SaaS) product can be tough in this ever-growing market. The SaaS industry has increased by 500% in the last several years and is predicted to be worth $1,251 billion by 2034.

If you’re planning on launching a new SaaS product, it’s essential to plan for commercial and technical strategies to set your product up for success.

This guide covers the primary considerations for the launch of a SaaS product - from ensuring a competitive advantage to having the optimal technical architecture.

Need cloud-based support for your launch? Get in touch with our expert SaaS Consultancy team. We have over 50 years of experience in the tech industry.

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What your SaaS product needs – the basics

Before you begin to develop your new SaaS product, it’s important to cover the basics of what a well-crafted SaaS product provides, such as:

 

• Understanding its market and target audience(s) to define its unique selling points
• Being technically robust with precise design and development
• Utilising cloud-based architecture for ongoing scale and security

A software as a service (SaaS) product should deliver the promised services online without users having to install software or hardware. There are many reasons why SaaS has become the preferred delivery for developers and start-ups:

 

• Low maintenance: You can target users with your product without them having to install, update or maintain hardware, middleware, or software.
• Affordable Solutions: SaaS technical architecture approach means fewer resources are needed to support, integrate and manage, making it operationally efficient to run products.
• Universal Access: Data is stored in the cloud so users and your workforce can access it from anywhere with a stable internet connection, you can tap into a global market.

 

Key considerations for your SaaS product

 

1. Planning & Scoping Requirements

The early stages of planning and scoping product requirements are essential for working out if there is a need for your product, what differentiates it from other potential offerings, what customer needs the product delivers on and which audiences it targets.

 

2. Market Research and Product Refinement

A thorough understanding of your target audience, their needs and pain points are vital for SaaS product development and marketing. You should also know what the competition offers and use this research to refine USPs, plan the product roadmap of features and capabilities, and define the overall service/product offering. Once you have a scope for your product you will need a software development plan and a product commercial strategy for successful placement within the target market and audience(s).

 

3. Technical Strategy

There are various options of how a SaaS product can be delivered such as initial prototype or minimum viable product (MVP) to test with customers or with a phased approach to delivery. It’s important to explore these options to determine what best meets your business goals and objectives in the short- and long-term. When defining the approach, it’s essential to consider your industry – leading platforms can deliver on making your product secure, high performance and scalable for continuous positive customer experience and confidence. Defining the optimal technical strategy will cover your current and future product needs.

 

4. Commercial Strategy

Market research informs pricing strategies and promotional devices (PR, product demos, trial periods). These can also help get investors on board and open the door for collaborations with external companies. Make pricing simple and transparent for end users while ensuring smooth online payment options. With SaaS products, there are many subscription-based pricing options based on users, volume/usage, feature based etc. There is also the consideration of costing ongoing support and maintenance to allow for continuous maintenance and updates. A commercial strategy should be backed with a robust technical approach in developing your custom software product. 

 

5. Technical Architecture - Making it Secure & Connectable via API Integrations

Providing access, storing customer data, processing data, payments and/or transactions are key elements of a SaaS product. Whenever a product is handling, managing, processing and storing data, it’s imperative to consider how this is done securely and how it’s protected from online threats. Customer confidence in your product is essential for success - when asking customers to use your product over others you need to show how you keep them protected. Embedding security by design principles in your SaaS product development process will help you deliver a product that is built on industry security best practices.

Mapping out the process of all the steps your product needs to take will help to determine where it needs to connect to other systems, or APIs (Application Programming Interface). It can be beneficial to some products to interact with other software that your target customers are already using, to sharing/pulling in data that is available from other systems. Consider which integrations may make your product more sticky or valuable if it had integrations with other tools and systems that support the entire customer journey.

Read more about API integrations.

 

SaaS Product Development – Agile Software Development 

Being Agile allows key features of the product to be prioritised, with early feedback, reviews and ongoing testing fostering quality. This approach will also enable early user testing with end customers, allowing for product enhancements and user experience improvements that will benefit all customers before broader roll out. Key elements to plan in for this phase:

1. Release a Demo

Releasing a demo – or Beta version – can expose your product to a preliminary customer base, create customer champions and showcase the product’s potential. Releasing a demo also allows your early customers to test drive the product that often leads to valuable real life user feedback. 

2. Continuous Development via Customer Feedback

Mobile friendliness, content architecture and product accessibility are just some of the areas to focus on when gathering user feedback in the early stages. Prioritise any ‘must have’ enhancements and improvements that have come from your testing/demo phase. No product is ever complete or finished. You need to determine when it’s commercially viable to charge customers for essential functionality and capability available in the product and whether that delivers on the targeted customers’ needs.

 

SaaS Product - Post-Initial Launch

Once a version of your product is released into the market - and in use by customers - continue capturing feedback from these end users, re-evaluate the product roadmap and optimise to ensure the product is delivering on your business objectives.

During this phase you should consider the continuous development of the product.

SaaS development doesn’t stop after the initial launch. With customers using the product, the expectation will be for them to receive continuous maintenance and ongoing product enhancements. There may also be advancements or changes in legislation, security, UX and UI that need to be adhered to.

 

Importance of streamlined customer onboarding

The customer onboarding process is vital for any SaaS product, and can increase customer retention by 50%. There are several ways that you can optimise this process:

• Quick sign-ups: Users won’t stick around long if signing up is jarring and complicated. Consider welcoming users in with friendly messages and simple account verification processes. The fewer fields on a form the more likely people are to fill it out.
• Autonomous assistance: Product tutorials, how to guides, tool tips within the product ensures that users have a guided experience.
• Trial periods: Trials can be beneficial in attracting customers to spend the time using the product and can provide a lead generation to convert free to paid.

There are many ways you can optimise customer onboarding for your SaaS product connect with I‑Finity to learn more.

 

Ready to develop your SaaS product?

Developing your SaaS product successfully requires technical precision, smart marketing, and consistent monitoring.

Every product differs both in substance and targeting, so it’s important to secure the right software development partner that can provide robust technical solutions and learning from delivering SaaS products across a range of industries.

I‑Finity are tech specialists that create customised and scalable digital solutions on industry-leading technologies. We can design and create your SaaS product to be scalable, secure, compliant with the optimal user interface and experience.

Contact us about your SaaS project today.