This article was written by Alexey Semeney, the CEO of DevTeam.Space — a vetted community of expert developers supported by our unique AI-powered agile process.
How to Build a SaaS Platform
Businesses and individuals are increasingly making SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) applications their choice software platform for their business needs. The increasing popularity of cloud computing indicates that the importance of SaaS will only increase in the future.
Businesses and individuals are increasingly making SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) applications their choice software platform for their business needs. The increasing popularity of cloud computing indicates that the importance of SaaS will only increase in the future.
A Cision PR Newswire report projects the SaaS market to grow from $158.2 billion in 2020 to $307.3 billion by 2026.
Are you an enterprise business leader or a start-up leader planning to offer your software product as a SaaS platform? If you are then you need to know how to build a SaaS application, and that’s exactly what we will cover in this article.
Why offering a SaaS application can help
A SaaS application is an app that’s internet-based rather than being installed and run from a local computer. Salesforce is a great example of a SaaS provider that specializes in CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
SaaS applications offer the following advantages:
- Cost savings: Software providers typically offer a SaaS product on a multi-tenancy cloud environment. This reduces the hardware and licensing costs.
- Scalability: SaaS products utilize cloud platforms. Reputed cloud providers deploy effective auto-scaling solutions, so SaaS products have better scalability. Users don’t need to buy and install additional hardware to scale the product.
- Integration: A software product might need to integrate with another. In the case of a traditional software product, you need to implement these integrations separately. SaaS products already have these integrations.
- Ease of upgrade: Users of SaaS products don’t need to upgrade the software since the provider manages the upgrades behind the scenes. Therefore, users save time and money.
- Ease of use: SaaS offerings aren’t new anymore. Software providers have studied the evolution of this delivery model, and they have implemented many best practices. They have prioritized the ease of use.
A step-by-step approach to developing a SaaS product
Take the following steps to build a SaaS platform:
1. Decide on the SaaS model, product strategy, and the pricing strategy
Formulate your strategy before undertaking software development. Building a SaaS product strategy involves the following:
- Defining the product vision;
- Understanding the problems and needs of clients;
- Creating a product positioning statement;
- Setting goals and objectives of the product;
- Establishing KPIs (Key Process Indicators);
- Researching about the competition;
- Analyzing the market;
- Deciding on the business model;
- Building the product roadmap;
- Planning to execute the roadmap and validating it based on user feedback.
You need to decide on a pricing model. Explore various subscription models and how you will charge subscribers. Consider the various options like flat-rate pricing, usage-based pricing, tiered pricing, per-user pricing, etc. Decide whether you will offer a freemium model or a free trial period.
2. Onboard a team to plan the SaaS development project
At the initial stage, onboard a team with a project manager (PM), software architect, and business analysts (BAs). Look for relevant SaaS development experience. E.g., you need to look for experience in the industry you target and the technology stack.
This team needs to gather functional requirements. It needs to finalize the non-functional requirements (NFRs). Furthermore, this team needs to decide on a development approach and plan the project.
You can hire these people in-house or hire an agency to help with that.
3. Decide on the project scope, e.g., requirements, web app, mobile app, etc.
Define the project scope. This includes the following components:
- Functional requirements: Decide on the functionality to offer. BAs need to gather functional requirements from users by conducting interviews. Examine the business needs of end-users. Map their journey through the product, and understand the inputs and outputs. Decide on the core features to offer, and document the requirements. Determine what you would exclude.
- Non-functional requirements (NFRs): These describe how well the system should perform and not what it does. Examples of NFRs are performance, scalability, availability, reliability, security, maintainability, accessibility, etc. Your architect will need to study the industry benchmark, i.e your rival products, moreover, they should also factor in the viewpoints of the business stakeholders.
- The type of the apps: You will only need to offer a web application if the product is available over a web browser only. However, many SaaS businesses increasingly offer mobile apps too. Analyze your target audience and decide whether you should offer a mobile app.
Note: If you have decided to offer a mobile app, then you should choose between native mobile apps or hybrid apps. Native apps deliver the best user experience and performance. Hybrid apps save development and maintenance costs, however, they can’t deliver the user experience and performance that native apps offer.
4. Finalize the features for the MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
You need to validate your product ideas, furthermore, you need to refine them based on the feedback from the market. We recommend you use the Agile software development methodology for this. The iterative development approach associated with it helps you to get market feedback quickly.
You first launch an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), which is a functional product with a subset of features. Test it in the market. Enhance or refine it based on the feedback.
First of all, determine which features to include in the MVP. You can use various tools for this, e.g.:
- A “Pain-Gain” map: Analyze the benefits that each proposed feature will offer.
- A “Prioritization matrix”: Prioritize the proposed features based on their impact and the effort required to implement them.
5. Choose a software architecture pattern for the proposed SaaS app
This part is more technical, so if you’re not a tech-experienced person, you can ask your architect about this.
You are now about to take the first set of key decisions in the software development process. Analyze your requirements and choose an appropriate software architecture.
The architect plays the key part here. He/she needs to document the architectural decisions, and this needs a structured review. The architect can choose from several popular architecture patterns, e.g.:
- MVC (Model-View-Controller): This architecture pattern involves three components, namely, model, view, and controller. It’s popular for web development. This pattern helps to create scalable and extensible software systems.
- Microservices architecture: Are you offering multiple distinct services in the proposed SaaS software? Can you have these services loosely coupled? Do they have different peaks and troughs vis-à-vis resource requirements? You can consider creating microservices for each of them, and the microservice architecture pattern might fit your project.
6. Formulate a robust security solution for the proposed SaaS app
A SaaS product utilizes cloud computing technology, and the specific application security challenges are important to understand. Application security becomes even more important if you are working in a highly-regulated industry. Create a robust security solution, which might involve the following:
- Choosing the right cloud computing platform and deployment model;
- Utilizing modern tools like MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication), digital signatures, etc.;
- Implementing encryption of data, whether “at-rest” or “in-transit”;
- Utilizing advanced security solutions like real-time threat intelligence, antivirus, firewall, etc.;
- Proactively mitigating application security risks.
Securing a SaaS app doesn’t end with implementing security solutions though. How to ensure application security after every new release? You can’t afford to have security and compliance testing as the last item in a checklist. Embrace “Compliance as Code”, and incorporate security and compliance testing as a part of your “Continuous Integration” (CI)/”Continuous Delivery” (CD) pipeline.
As you can see, this subject is about tech. So if you don’t fully understand it, feel free to discuss it with your hired architect or a vendor you decided to hire to help you build your SaaS application.
7. Choose a cloud computing platform for SaaS development
You now need to choose a cloud computing platform. There are several options, e.g.:
- AWS (Amazon Web Services): AWS is the market leader in the cloud services landscape. With its comprehensive offerings and wide range of services, AWS can be a good choice.
- Microsoft Azure: An established MCSP (Managed Cloud Service Provider), Azure offers a wide range of services. Its hybrid cloud and security capabilities are especially notable.
- Google Cloud Platform: Google has considerable cloud capabilities. It offers many services too, making Google Cloud Platform another good choice.
Decide the kind of cloud computing platform you need. Consider the following alternatives:
- IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service): The MCSP provides servers, networking, etc. You take care of the rest.
- PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service): The MCSP takes care of the infrastructure, servers, operating system, middleware, and runtime environment. You bring your code and data. PaaS platforms provide many useful services like databases, DevOps tools, etc. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is an example.
- MBaaS (Mobile-Backend-as-a-Service): This is useful for mobile app development. Developers can focus on the front-end and business logic. MBaaS platforms provide infrastructure, persistent storage, etc., which makes it easier to develop and manage the mobile app back-end. AWS Amplify is an example.
8. Choose a tech stack for SaaS application development
You need to choose a technology stack, and the project scope influences your decision. Consider the following options:
- You can use a popular web development framework like Angular.js. It provides useful templates for front-end development. Alternatively, you can use JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
- PHP can be a good choice for Back-end development. On other hand, you can choose Node.js for server-side development if you prefer JavaScript.
- You will develop RESTful APIs for the back-end, and you need to choose the right database solutions. MySQL and PostgreSQL are good choices when you need an RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). On the other hand, you can use MongoDB or Cassandra if you need a NoSQL database.
- If you develop native mobile apps, then you need to choose the programming language supported by the mobile platform. You need to use either Java or Kotlin for native Android development. Use Swift or Objective-C for native iOS development.
- If you plan to develop hybrid apps, then you can use a modern framework like React Native. This JavaScript-based framework helps to deliver a near-native user experience. You will have only one codebase, however, you can execute the app on Android and iOS.
Do you plan to offer complex features that utilize cutting-edge technologies like AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT (Internet of Things), etc.? You need to choose a technology stack according to your specific requirements. E.g., you can use Python for developing ML (Machine Learning) algorithms.
9. Onboard a development team
- You now need to onboard a development team. Hire developers if you don’t have developers in your organization. You need the following roles:
- User interface (UI) designers;
- Back-end developers;
- Front-end/Mobile developers;
- Testers;
- DevOps engineers.
You have the following hiring options:
- Freelance platforms: Quite a few freelance platforms provide developers. You need to post your job requirements. You will get applications, and you need to shortlist candidates. After the interview, you can hire suitable freelancers. Note that you need to manage their work. Freelance platforms don’t provide management support, and you need to find a replacement in the case of a turn-over. In addition, it’s very hard to scale a team of freelancers, and you don’t really have any control over them. So if you’re not an experienced project manager or didn’t build SaaS platforms before, I would not recommend you using freelance platforms.
- Software development companies: You can hire developers from a software development company. These companies offer project management support, and they provide a replacement if a developer leaves the project mid-development. It’s a much safer option.
Here’s a couple of freelance platforms:
Upwork.com
Freelancer.com
And here’s a couple of software development companies:
Tanzu (https://tanzu.vmware.com/labs)
DevTeam.Space (https://www.devteam.space/)
What if you don’t have the project management bandwidth to manage the work of the developers you hire? Outsourcing the SaaS app development project could be an option in such cases. Several service providers have the necessary capabilities to take up such projects, however, evaluate them carefully.
10. Manage the app development project effectively
You need to manage your development project effectively. Agile project teams need to focus on value to clients. While they need to follow processes, these processes should be geared towards delivering tangible value.
You need to build a team that fosters collaboration and teamwork. Such teams should be empowered enough to quickly resolve project issues. They need to prioritize value to the client, and the Scrum framework provides the right support for this.
Build a Scrum team. These are small, cross-functional teams where developers and testers work together. A “Scrum master” leads such teams, and the team collaborates closely with the “product owner”. These teams work on short iterations that are known as “sprints”.
They deliver fully functional features in each sprint. Scrum teams use a process called “sprint planning” to schedule features in sprints. They use “daily stand-up meetings” to resolve project issues.
Scrum masters should monitor relevant agile metrics to manage the project effectively. “Sprint burndown”, “velocity”, “epic & release burndown”, “lead time”, and “value delivered” are a few examples of such metrics.
Final thoughts
The popularity of SaaS solutions is only going to continue growing. Many software product vendors are already using this delivery model and those with vision are rushing to create their own as we speak. Building a SaaS platform can take time and effort so you will need the right planning, skills, and professionals to make it happen.
