How to Start a SaaS Company: A Step-by-Step Guide

Starting a business is tough these days. In the digital age, lots of offline companies want to move online to increase revenue and expand their reach.

However, with more and more companies going this route, competition is fierce.

Launching a SaaS business is a great idea that can generate significant income if you offer a quality product at a reasonable price.

In order to succeed in this arena, there are several key steps to follow, which we’ll outline below.

But first, let’s answer the question, “What exactly is a SaaS model?”

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What is a SaaS Platform?

We have already written an article “What is a SaaS” but let’s revise it in order to be sure that everything is clear.

SaaS (software as a service) is a model where the service provider uses its own Internet application and provides an opportunity for consumers to use it with the help of the World Wide Web.

The main features of SaaS:

• Users of the platform do not pay for updates, installation, and maintenance of the used hardware and software.
• Service improvement and updates are transparent to users, they do not need to manually perform any actions for this.
• The supplier charges fees for the use of the service. The price depends on the duration of access to the service (for example, monthly subscription) or the number of operations performed.

How to Start a SaaS Business: 9 Steps to Success

If you think that for creating a SaaS business you need to know to program, then you are wrong – all you need is to hire skilled specialists to do it for you.

Here are some steps that could help you in the first stage of platform development.

1. Come Up With a Software Idea

Think about what services you’d like to provide, what would be the features, possible prices and so on.

Define the goal of the project, since it is the most important thing that you will be aimed at.

During the whole period of creating your SaaS, you have to ask yourself one question “Do I do everything for reaching the goal?”.

If you think something is not going as you have expected, then you’ll have to implement some changes in your strategy.

2. Research the Market

Make sure that your SaaS concept and idea are not already taken and there are actually people willing to use your product and pay money for it.

In order to do it, make polls or just start asking people if your idea might be interesting for them and if they would buy it.

3. Research Your Competitors

Of course, you’re more likely not to have a totally unique idea on the market but you can investigate the competitors, find strengths and weaknesses of their businesses.

It will play a vital role in making your service more competitive and beneficial for customers.

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4. Create a Landing Page

Make sure it contains detailed information about your SaaS so that people get the idea and what advantages they can receive.

It’s a great opportunity to generate as many leads and emails as possible.

This would be your target audience that is likely to use your services after the launch. So, all you need is to prove your idea with this MVP in software development.

You can also try to get financing for the project.

Nowadays some services make it possible to create landing pages free of charge or at a very low price.

However, it would be much better to create a fully customized lead generation page to catch people’s eyes.

Moreover, we advise you to find professionals in this field who will develop a very attractive design, develop a startup marketing strategy, and set up a contextual advertising campaign.

For advertisers looking to maximize exposure, our CPM calculator helps manage costs while reaching more people.

5. Build Social Connections Around Your Idea

Start inviting people to join it, subscribe to your newsletter, put their emails, etc.

That’s why the previous step is so essential.

If no one signs up it’s either that you have failed to find your target audience or no one is interested in the provided services. Make sure that traffic is related and targeted to the industry your software will be in.

Make an advertisement for the software you’re going to launch soon.

If people sign up then you know that this might be a viable product and it’s something that people could be interested in.

6. Write Technical Specs for the Full Solution

It’s one of the most important things in the project.

You need to make a guideline on your software, you should describe in details what design you prefer, what happens when you click this or that button, what pages the software includes, what are the payment and payback systems, referral programs, etc.

You should include every feature you want to be implemented.

Make sure it is written clearly so that the development team won’t face misunderstanding looking through the technical task.

7. Get Lots of Signups

When you get lots of signups you know it’s high time you started creating a platform and hired a designer and developers if you haven’t done in at the stage of creating a landing page.

We advise you to hire a team of professionals who will be able to develop a project from scratch and cover all stages of the development process.

8. Define Customer Needs

Determine whether your client will need single-tenancy or multi-tenancy architecture before you begin the project, and explain these specifications clearly to your team after you help your client decide which way to go, based on their needs.

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9. Get Design and Development Done

Check that your software was fully tested. You can learn more about why is software testing important in our recent article.

Then the next step is actually the launch. It makes sense to create at first a beta mode to make it possible for users to sign up for the beta and try it out, since it is a great solution for getting feedback from users on what they like and dislike, maybe they’ll suggest options on its improving.

However, the launch is not the end, it’s only the start of lots of challenges on the way to your goal defined in the first step.

Cloud computing is a rather widespread solution, so various enterprises intend to start completely new projects in that field or to enlarge an already existing business.

Curious about cloud software? Learn about the ASP model vs SaaS model and which is best for your business.

The competition is very high; you should know how to differentiate yourself from other service providers.

Make sure your idea has unique features that are significant for consumers and enough for them to choose your platform.

We hope that the strategy written above will help you in starting your SaaS business and it will be a successful one.