SaaS Product Development Process: A Complete Guide For 2024

Software-as-a-service, or SaaS, is revolutionary in the IT industry. Organizations employ platforms such as Google Workspace, Microsoft, Slack, Zoom, Hubspot, and many more to facilitate global operations, communication, and teamwork. Given the variety of SaaS services available, it is scarcely surprising that end-user expenditure in the sector is predicted to exceed $208 billion by 2023. Small and startup businesses are just some of those utilizing SaaS and breaking down their more intricate monolithic software into many components.

Companies have always been drawn to take advantage of opportunities and establish themselves in the market through constant expansion, high revenue, and many unrealized chances. And that's precisely what the SaaS industry is doing right now. The enormous income predicted for the upcoming years lures both large and small businesses to introduce their SaaS solutions. We've covered various SaaS development processes.

What is meant by a "SaaS application"?

Software as a service (SaaS) is centrally hosted software made available online via subscription. It is not installed locally; users access it via a web browser. Companies can focus on their core competencies while the supplier handles security, upgrades, and maintenance. SaaS is popular among businesses seeking affordable, scalable, and valuable solutions.  

SaaS systems provide a wide variety of programs that are easily accessible, increasing productivity and streamlining operations for businesses. Think about Google Docs, Slack, Canva, Salesforce, Azure, Windows, etc.  

Also Read: How to Hire saaS Developers for your business idea

SaaS product development process

Step 1: Studying the market 

Before beginning any SaaS platform development, product teams must shift their focus from what they are developing to the consumers they are creating it for. What issue is resolved by this SaaS product? Who is this meant to be seen by? What distinguishes this product from the others? Market research can identify inconsistencies and weaknesses in the product concept early in development. It makes it simple to test group ideas and discover crucial information about people's unfulfilled wants.

Before creating a SaaS solution, discover a few potential users' issues through research and development. You might get feedback from potential clients using survey platforms like ProProf's Survey Maker and Qualaroo.

2. Gather Essential SaaS Product Needs

The next step is to determine your product needs. These include technical elements like the multi-tenancy architecture to user activity monitoring, self-service provisioning, and SaaS product security.

When developing a SaaS system or SaaS product, a firm plan for scalability, security audits, customization options, and privacy protection is necessary. Security was once viewed as an afterthought in software development rather than an essential building block.

Current legal regulations demand the highest security standards, and users are becoming increasingly concerned about the security of their sensitive data. Thus, discuss how you could alter your offering to satisfy your clients' and users' unique SaaS requirements.

Finally, you must develop a SaaS application supporting a growing user base.

3. Developed a thorough estimate of the budget  

The group should have enough data by now to estimate the budget. Thanks to their estimates, the key stakeholders will have a fair idea of the total cost of the SaaS product development process. 

The budget covers the following activities' costs:

• Code Design
• Business evaluation
• Customer support
• Advertisements for Preservation

When drafting a budget, consider the challenges and setbacks that may arise later. Unexpected expenses may necessitate a mid-development search for further funding, which could result in unwelcome delays. After all, a well-anticipated budget supports venture capital investment, enhanced resource allocation and planning, risk mitigation, and the financial sustainability of the SaaS service you developed. Aspirations for the project must be balanced with available funds and investment capabilities.

4. Focus on Your Business Concept 

Your software product's pricing plans and approaches can make or break it. Whatever the quality, you won't be able to attract clients and expand if the price strategy isn't customized to your target market's requirements, behaviors, and financial circumstances. 

The following pricing schemes are the most often used in SaaS: 

With usage-based pricing, clients can adjust their payments based on how much they consume.

It offers a limited-featured free edition and encourages users to upgrade to subscription plans with more excellent capabilities.

• A flat cost, typically paid monthly or annually, provides the entire product or feature set for a single payment.
• Pricing based on active users: offers a complete feature set or product at a cost per user.
• Features pricing: provides a range of feature sets at different prices.  
• Although the price model requires long-term planning, having the right pricing strategy might help you gain traction in your industry in the short term.

SaaS solutions generally employ several widely used pricing models, such as:  

• Market penetration: attracting customers with a low entry price
• Promotional pricing shifts from higher to lower when a product gains prestige and exclusivity.
• Upmarket niche brands typically employ premium pricing as their pricing strategy.
• Free trial period 
• The ideal price model and strategy will depend on your product, long-term objectives, target market, and other factors. It is imperative to consider and implement suitable go-to-market, SEO, social media, and paid acquisition tactics alongside pricing strategies and various B2B marketing techniques.

5. Ascertain the Technology Stack for Your SaaS Product

The next step in developing your SaaS project is to select the development technique. It would help if you determined which technologies are necessary for developing your SaaS product. An extensible and feature-rich technological stack enhances your SaaS application's long-term sustainability.

The following are some crucial technologies that need to be a part of your technology stack:

Frontend: Product developers employ popular frontend frameworks like Vue.js, Angular, and React to design a SaaS application's user interface (UI). 

Backend: The backend of the program is what makes it a server (such as AWS or Azure), a database (such as NoSQL, PostgreSQL, or MySQL), and a programming language (such as Django or Node.js). The backend tech stack consists of a server (such as AWS or Azure), a database (such as NoSQL, PostgreSQL, or MySQL), and a programming language (such as Django or Node.js).

Supplier of web hosting: After developing your SaaS application, you must use reliable cloud hosting services to host it online.

6. Construct an MVP

An MVP is a minimally viable product (MVP). This technique is used in the SaaS product development process, where the product is produced with the absolute minimum functionality needed to satisfy early users and validate the concept in the real market.

Here, the focus is on creating the core elements of the product that solve users' primary issues, omitting auxiliary features. SaaS developers can save time and money by quickly iterating and getting early feedback.

The MVP phase is critical for testing market demands and product usability theories. Using user comments and actual user data (instead of guesswork) guides future development. Consequently, you may release it faster, test it with consumers, determine market demand, make changes based on input, and even get market validation.

7. Assess and Enhance Your SaaS Product

Once your MVP is created, you must test it with early adopters. In the testing stage, two things are determined:

• If your product concept is workable
• Whether implementing your idea is sufficient for the users

At this point, it's imperative to devote time to user communication. You may use more information to enhance your SaaS product the more client reviews you have.

It should also operate without a hitch and any problems. Because of this, you should assign your quality assurance engineers and product testers to conduct manual and automated testing of the SaaS product. Your development team should also include analysts who can assess the information and feedback the MVP's beta testers provide. They can help find bugs that need to be corrected or use unimportant cases. Once you have adequately tested your software as a service and removed any bugs or superfluous operations that distract customers from the core features, you can prepare your software for distribution.

8. Check and Release the Full Version

The SaaS product should get closer to meeting customer needs and business goals as iterations of the development process progress. Stated differently, it comes close to the original definition of done that the team established for the project.

A clear definition of done and regular evaluation of its application reduces wait times, rework expenses, and partially completed work. It also offers a set of guidelines that the quality assurance (QA) team must adhere to when checking the product for errors. After the product passes the quality assurance phase, it is prepared for release. Depending on the product type, this can mean preparing it for upload to a SaaS distribution channel. SaaS distribution routes come in two varieties: direct and indirect.

Direct distribution routes involve corporate personnel, staff, and technical assets. To contact and close sales with clients, they use phone calls, e-commerce websites, and field personnel. SaaS products meant exclusively for internal usage may be distributed via IT departments or private clouds. Indirect channels include app store marketplaces, in-app purchases, resellers, IT firms, and other technology providers.

9. Maintenance and Support

Once your product is published, it's all about maintenance, optimization, and management. When discussing optimizing the SaaS product, the SaaS ecosystem should be optimized in terms of expenses, tenant experience, performance, availability, functionality, and other factors. To grow your SaaS business, you must ensure it is appropriately optimized. Careful optimization while scaling might lower production costs. This brings forth the next stage, which is scalability.

This is one of the most crucial stages of your SaaS product's life. Every business wants to increase the number of its clients gradually. This is where you should plan for the following stages of your SaaS solution. These include various options like adding more features, enhancing the tenant facilities, enhancing the product, etc.

Read More: How to Choose Between SaaS vs PaaS vs IaaS

Conclusion

Creating a SaaS application is a profitable but time-consuming process. If you use your SaaS software correctly, it can provide you with several advantages. Here, working with a SaaS application development partner could be advantageous. Collaborating with a SaaS app development company such as Glasier Inc. would benefit you for several reasons.

Creating a SaaS solution requires a lot of effort and highly skilled personnel. Searching for individuals whenever your team needs a specific talent could delay the launch or increase overall costs. You can easily steer clear of all of these issues by collaborating with an experienced SaaS development company. You can assemble a team, hire remote saaS developers, or outsource the task. Contact us to discuss how we can support your SaaS development needs.