I'm trying to start one, and I realize that there are many things that I have to consider—like dealing with spammers, credit card fraud, common mistakes, etc.
I've read many, many articles, but I wonder if there are some important things that you only learn with experience that I should prepare for.
70% of the money will come from the enterprise/offline sales you do and the rest will come from your website.
For the kind of sites I'm making right now, I can ask ~1000 for a heavy use of the service I'm building.
That's like gaining 100 customers in a hour.
http://www.kalzumeus.com/archive/
Good luck.
Thanks, I'll try to take a look.
This is particularly useful: http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/greatest-hits/
- On-boarding and acquiring new clients is still a lot easier than sustaining/retaining them. A lot of us focus too much on marketing, getting new clients etc. but not on sustaining them. For some businesses, that works but for SAAS, customer retention is a big deal and really hard.
- Every month, a small percentage of Credit cards will fail to renew the client's subscription. Sometimes it is just the banks being stupid, sometimes the cards expired or reported stolen. You need to have a process to ensure clients are aware and fix this asap. Fancy word for this is "dunning"
- Unless you have a solid team with good funding, offering a free or freemium version will be difficult for you since you will get tons of tire kickers and time wasters. So you will be spending too much time talking to them when they are probably not going to be paying customers anyway. Hint: If after 2 discussions/emails/calls, someone still asking questions are most likely the ones who will never convert. Yes, there are a few who take time but in my experience of doing this for 3 years now, I almost know who will convert and who won't.
- Not all clients are same. You may have to be partial at times depending on the client. For example, some clients just want the whole world and don't get the idea of a SAAS. Learn to keep them in check while it is ok to pamper the good ones a bit more. Hint: Keep track of support emails/questions/tickets for each client. If you see too many unreasonable requests from a client, be polite but frank with them about what is possible vs not. Often times, clients mean well and just don't understand why a feature cannot be built just for them. It is your job to explain that to them.
- Reduce friction when it comes to on-boarding. A lot of clients leave because they find it difficult to get started. This is not the same as building an easy software. This is about ensuring that your clients learn how to use that software when early on. Documentation, FAQs, Guides whatever you call it. And no, don't listen to people who say that only badly designed software needs documentation. Everything needs documentation. Trust me.
- Backups. Remote backups. Not on the same server. Don't take this casually.
- Learn to Sell. Only way is to actually do it. Don't "outsource" your sales specially in the beginning. You being able to convince someone that your product is worth it is what matters.
- If you start growing and think you need to hire, be very careful. Hire really slow. Fire really fast. If you can, hire a freelancer/sub-contractor instead of full-time. Then go from there as needed.
- You will need to do some basic accounting yourself to understand your business numbers. Learn how to create a simple PnL statement. If you don't know, talk to a good CPA (or equivalent in your country).
- If you are making some money, don't forget to incorporate AND also hire a good CPA if you can afford. For small businesses or SAAS products, a good CPA can cost anywhere from $500-$2000 for the entire year (depending on what you ask them to do)
Finally, I will leave you with this. Running a SAAS is awesome once you get a hold of what matters and what doesn't. You will learn with experience and probably make a few mistakes. But don't give up and keep fighting. Nothing is better than seeing recurring payments hitting your bank every month and knowing that you are providing value to some people in the real world.
Great points.
Focus on sales. Did I say sales? Have you ever sold anything? Did you write your prospect list and started setting appointments?
Sales. If you are bad at those, anything else wont matter.
It takes great to get liftoff. The bad ideas aren't the hard ones. The hard ones are the good ideas .. Maybe people are paying. Maybe they even like it. Sadly good isn't good enough in SaaS. For a SaaS product to really win it needs real, measurable velocity.
If I could offer one big of insight I've managed to pick up - genuine traction in SaaS is hard won, but then it's really (really) obvious. If it's not slapping you in the face, then time to change tack. Maybe that's a tweak or it's a pivot, but keep trying till you have that clarity.
Can you give an example? :-)
Traction is really when the business starts driving you rather than vice-versa.
I suspect the reality is every SaaS startup out there will have a different metric or moment of realization. Could be a pulling in a big customer, or a piece of content marketing that really hits home. If I really had to hone in on just one, it's cash.
If you've got a business that's getting by -- If you're charging monthly, I'd ask how many customers you can get to commit to annual payments. If people are paying $100 month, I'd ask how you double it. If your sales cycle averages to a month, I'd wonder if it can be a week.
My dataset of successes is limited, but plenty of misses The meta-point is that it's really obvious when it hits. It's obvious when it misses.
The tough calls are when it's just creeping along. Doesn't mean it is a bad idea, just that you need to keep iterating -- your marketing, features, onboarding, whatever you can.
Good luck!
The kicker is, how well you do on the 20% determines how hard your 80% will be.