How to Build a SaaS Product That Stands The Test of Time

Software as a Service (SaaS) has a relatively low barrier to entry.

Depending on the complexity of the project, it's possible to launch a SaaS solution with less than $50,000 in startup costs. Maybe the most famous example of this is Mailchimp, which was born from reused code from a side project and was later sold to Intuit for $12 billion.

However, for every Mailchimp, there are dozens of SaaS startups that don't make it.

Just 35% of SaaS startups survive to their tenth birthday, according to data from Userpilot. Then, only 40% of those remaining startups ever become profitable. SaaS is an easy market to enter, but it's a very difficult one to succeed in.

How do you build a SaaS product that stands the test of time?

It's all about doing your homework and building a product that the market is ready for. Then, after launch, you must continually listen to your users and evolve your SaaS solution as things change.

Why Do Most SaaS Startups Fail?

It's pretty simple. Most of the SaaS platforms go under because they:

1. Don't meet the needs of the customers they are trying to help, or
2. Aren't differentiated enough from the players already in the marketplace.

One of the reasons that Mailchimp was so successful was that it directly solved a common need in the marketplace better than anyone else. It was a lightweight but powerful alternative to the expensive, oversized email platforms of the early 2000s.

Mailchimp didn't need to have every feature under the sun. It just needed to solve an important need, and do it better than anyone else could.

The Discovery Phase of the SaaS Lifecycle

That brings us to the discovery phase, arguably the most important phase in SaaS application development.

The discovery phase sets the groundwork for developing a successful SaaS product by focusing on meticulous planning and strategic groundwork. This phase is essential for aligning your SaaS solution with market needs and establishing a solid foundation for future scalability.

This is where it pays to be honest with yourself and ask the tough questions.

Market Research and Idea Validation

Before you begin to plan any development, you must first understand your target market and validate your product concept. This stage involves identifying potential customers, understanding their needs and scrutinizing the competitive landscape.

This includes:

• Identifying the pain point that your SaaS app will solve.
• Validating that there is enough demand for your solution to be viable as a business.
• Evaluating the competition to understand who else is solving the same pain point, and how you can differentiate your product.

This is an extensive — and often costly — process. That's why we developed Archie.

Archie is 8base's AI-powered product architect, and it can significantly enhance this process. Archie is free to use, and it works with just a simple prompt.

Tell Archie a little about what you're hoping to build, and within minutes, Archie will give you detailed feedback on how novel your idea is, how much demand there is for it, and how feasible it is to bootstrap.

That's just the start. Archie is trained on multiple LLMs, each focused on different phases of the product lifecycle, to ideate through different features you can include in your product to truly differentiate yourself from the crowded SaaS marketplace.

Defining the MVP

Once you've completed your initial market research and are confident in the concept, it's time to begin defining your minimum viable product (MVP). This is where you'll focus on the essential features that solve the core problems identified during your research.

Make sure to prioritize:

• Key functionalities that directly address the main issues faced by your users.
• Building a runway for iteration. You'll be launching with a limited version of your product, so it's important to leave room in your product design and technology stack for growth.

Archie plays a crucial role here by accelerating the MVP planning process. With its rapid conceptualization capabilities, Archie can take a simple description of your idea and generate a comprehensive digital blueprint.

This blueprint not only outlines necessary features and functionalities but it also considers security and regulatory requirements.

This ensures that your MVP is comprehensive, encompassing the innovative solutions that will delight your users as well as the data security and governance features to give your users peace of mind.

Selecting the Technology Stack

Choosing the right technology stack is crucial for supporting your MVP and accommodating future growth. The decision involves selecting frameworks, languages and backend services that align with your current needs and scalability requirements.

With Archie's digital blueprint, you'll receive a detailed outline of technical specifications to guide your tech stack selection.

You can then integrate Archie's blueprint with 8base's Backend-as-a-Service. 8base offers a scalable, serverless GraphQL backend that seamlessly integrates with any frontend framework, allowing you to focus on developing unique features while it handles the complex backend operations.

This combination not only speeds up development but also optimizes costs and reduces the technical burden, ensuring your platform is robust and scalable from the start.

Post-Launch Maintenance, Iteration and Scaling

While most SaaS startups fail due to inadequate planning, many others go under because they fail to react to changing market conditions and customer demands.

A classic example of this is Rdio, which launched in 2010 and was one of the first large-scale music streaming services. In 2013, Entertainment Weekly rated Rdio as the best streaming service on the market, with "by far the best app and online interface, making database searching and playlist curation easy."

Rdio closed its doors just two short years later, after spinning its wheels on a series of product features that users didn't want, and falling behind Spotify's more attractive membership model (freemium, versus Rdio's paid memberships).

Continuous Improvement and Feature Enhancements

Regularly updating the platform with new features and enhancements keeps your service relevant and valuable to users, but it's critical to be sure that your features align with your customers' needs.

Implementing Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys is an effective way to gather actionable customer feedback. This gives your product and customer service teams a straightforward way to not only monitor user satisfaction, but also identify specific areas for improvement.

Using tools like Archie, you can take NPS feedback ideas and iterate on them to be sure your approach is as comprehensive as possible. Archie helps transform NPS insights into detailed, actionable plans, ensuring that updates and new features are both user-focused and strategically aligned with business goals.

Scaling Strategies

As your user base grows, you'll need to scale to handle increased demand without compromising performance. This involves expanding your infrastructure, optimizing your technology stack for greater efficiency and enhancing your capabilities to support a larger number of users.

With 8base's serverless GraphQL backend, we make scaling simple. This allows for efficient, low-touch management of increased loads and user activity, allowing you to focus time and energy on developing a great application.

To Sum It Up

Just about anyone can build a SaaS platform, but few do it well. It requires meticulous planning, a deep understanding of your market and continuous adaptation to meet changing user needs and conditions.

By strategically using tools like Archie for ongoing iteration and 8base for scalable backend services, you can build a product that users love: today, tomorrow and in the future.

Next Steps

• Try Archie for free
• Read the Docs to find out how to use Archie
• Find out more about 8base (it's also free to try!)