Posts

tips-for-saas-business-success-scaled-e1615238708300 5 Tips for SaaS Business Success

With February came another exciting event in our webinar series: Learning from the Best SaaS companies, with guest speaker Boris Wertz. Wertz is the Founding Partner of Version One Ventures, a fund that invests in early-stage founders across North America. He has years of experience investing in consumer internet and enterprise companies and was generous enough to share his insights on how to create business success in SaaS. We talked about all things SaaS, from reducing the friction of initial engagement, to one of Wertz’s biggest tips, leveraging the preexisting to build something even more effective. Growing innovation is absolutely crucial and if you keep reading, you’ll learn our top tips for SaaS business success. 

Reducing Friction

When speaking about the critical importance of reducing friction, Wertz shared some wise words. “If you can reduce the friction of engagement for a new user, you’re onto something.” People want a user experience filled with ease, not hard work, and that’s the simple truth of it. The example of YouTube came up in the webinar, and how a lot of their initial success can be attributed to their easy video upload experience for users. It makes the service highly requested and attractive to clients. 

Leveraging the Preexisting

Another tip for the SaaS industry is remembering that there is no need to build everything from scratch. Leverage whatever you can that is already out there! As Wertz puts it, there is a lot of technology and infrastructure that can be “stacked” to create something unique and meaningful. And it has never been easier to do so. In this case, “it makes no sense to reinvent the wheel.”

Capital Efficiency

Capital efficiency was another topic that was touched on during this webinar. Being capitally efficient is one of the most important ways to ensure SaaS business success. Wertz gave the example of Slack, the highly profitable chat room app that connects all members of an organization. When they focussed on capital efficiency, they saw immediate results. Capital efficiency refers to when more annual recurring revenue is created in a year than burned. Something to keep in mind is that a big part of capital efficiency is market efficiency as well. Staying informed about pricing and upselling and expanding your business for current clients can help you stay above the curve and avoid churn. 

Developing a New Category

It’s been said before, but still rings true; if you can find a hole or area of need in the industry and find a way to fulfill it, you’re on the right path. Developing a new category can be difficult but it’s not impossible. The app Slack is an amazing example here as well! They had no enterprise sales at first but as the problem of communication within organizations evolved, they found increased success. One strategy to get started is to solve a small problem for a small group of customers but then expand from there. Wertz gave the example of Hootsuite, the popular social media management platform. They were able to pick up on a trend that needed some work and although they started small, they quickly multiplied in size.

Creating a Great Team

As with any other situation, having a skillful, enthusiastic team is a big part of achieving your organization’s goals. Communicating the importance of having the ability to learn and stay intellectually flexible is crucial when evolving your SaaS processes. A team that keeps a growth mindset while exercising a strong work ethic will quickly rise through the ranks. Finally, having team members that comprehend the power of storytelling is a big benefit. When interacting with clients or even within the organization, understanding how to sell an idea or weave emotion and meaning into it is a big bonus.

 

Want to learn more about creating SaaS business success? Read our blog Microsoft Tools to Grow Your SaaS Business.

MS-SaaS-Business Microsoft Tools to Grow Your SaaS Business

Microsoft provides specific tools and programs that help SaaS businesses elevate their products, reach their customers, and develop their solutions into a profitable business. Below are the top 5 Microsoft tools to grow your SaaS business. 

 

Azure Cloud

Adopting the cloud comes with incredible advantages. SaaS businesses, in particular, can use the cloud to scale quickly and increase availability without investing in expensive hardware. In addition, since Azure cloud’s security is pre-baked, you have even less overhead to worry about. And, finally, if you have an existing Windows Server and SQL Server license with Software Assurance, then you can pay a reduced rate when you move to Azure.

Get started with 12 months of free service

 

Solution Workplace

If you are building a new solution, it’s tough to know what your precise needs will be. Yet, Microsoft’s Solution Workplace will guide you through this new territory and help you build your solution, take it to market, and grow your sales. After answering a few questions about your needs, the Solution Workplace provides personalized checklists and resources. Now, you have step-by-step guidance through the tasks you need to complete along the lifecycle of your new solution.

You can even collaborate in the Solution Workplace with your entire team. For example, members of your marketing or engineering team can work simultaneously on separate steps but still have visibility about the whole project as you check off completed steps.

View this tutorial for a step-by-step guide on how to use Solution Workspace.

 

Access to Training

Microsoft understands how important it is to build your team’s skills on Microsoft products and to stay up-to-date on the latest tools and technology. That’s why they provide several resources that can help you access training for your team.

Training Center provides role-specific learning paths that help develop your team’s talent and skill on Microsoft products and solutions. There are a variety of learning paths provided, everything from marketer to Architect.

Microsoft Virtual Training Days also provides accelerated remote training, covering a range of technical topics for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Microsoft Docs has quick starts, tutorials, API reference, and code examples for end users, developers and IT professionals.

 

Commercial Marketplace

One of the major benefits of working with Microsoft is being able to extend your reach to potential customers. When you are a part of the Microsoft Partner Network, you can list your solutions on Microsoft’s Commercial Marketplace, which consists of two online stores: Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource. By publishing your offer on the commercial marketplace, you are able to showcase your product to 4 million active users across 140+ geographies and tap into new audiences and unlock scale.

Partners who list on the commercial marketplace are also eligible for a set of free technical, marketing, and sales benefits to help grow their business.

Here’s an example of an offer listing page in Azure Marketplace:

MS-SaaS Microsoft Tools to Grow Your SaaS Business

Source: Microsoft

 

Access to Marketing Resources

Leverage effective marketing tactics no matter the size or experience of your team. Smart Partner Marketing provides various resources to help you differentiate your solution, provide customizable assets, and access to their digital marketing content on demand platform. 

As a partner, you also have access to Microsoft’s Go-to-Market services to reach more customers. Resources and tools — such as personalized consultation to guidance for marketing assets — are provided as you prepare to introduce your solutions to the right customers. 

Growing your SaaS business can be challenging but leveraging these Microsoft tools can help elevate your product, skill up your team, and extend your reach to potential customers. If you need additional support, Optimus can provide support for cloud migration, cloud management, DevOps, and QA and Testing. Contact us at: info@optimusinfo.com

Just getting started? Download Microsoft’s SaaS Playbook that provides strategies for building your SaaS business, technical details about deploying your solutions, and best practices. They also include a calculator that helps discover your app’s financial potential.

SaaS Playbook and App Potential Calculator

 

Events

Nothing Found

Sorry, no posts matched your criteria