Ask HN: Best way to build a SaaS product for a non-tech founder

I am a non-tech founder and have a compelling SAAS idea. I have validated the idea by surveying several potential customers. I am a potential customer myself. I have evaluated no-code solutions but I don't think that will solve problem for my customers.

I have a budget of about $50K to spend on building the product. I suppose, I have following options - Learn to code myself and build an MVP (Doesn't appear to be a practical choice) - Hire an outsourcing agency (or freelancer). Tell them my requirements and give them money. Looks practical one but have heard not so great feedback about this approach. - Hire a few technical people myself and build the product. - Find a CTO. Have tried doing it and failed.

Is there any 5th option which I am missing? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Contact info - omk55f7e@duck.com

Yes, but my concern is that the problem I am trying to solve won't make a unicorn but surely make a few million dollar business. I wonder if this would be exciting enough for a tech co-founder. What do you think?

Share your idea here and provide your contact information, and technical people here will respond.

I'm going to give advice here on the assumption that you won't be taking on a CTO. I think it's a legit choice, finding the right partner is hard. Anyhow, it'll be easier to find the right person after there's something tangible to show.

The first thing to clarify to yourself is how close your SaaS is to a CRUD app. The less actual processing of data in the background there is, the easier it'll be for you to get this app built.

The second step is to wireframe your product properly, including behavior. For this you don't need a developer at all, but a designer. I would strongly recommend looking around on Upwork. Upwork gets a lot of flak on HN, and in my experience, wrongly so. At any rate, since it's your SaaS, not the designer's, you'll end up designing most of it yourself. The designer is there to execute, so that you end up with a decent mock up.

Working on getting to a mockup will force you to get very clear on the exact functionality of your future app. For this reason, don't try to design everything. Design for the absolute bare minimum product you could see yourself using.

Having a mock up is brilliant: not only can you show it to prospects, but you can start to get quotes for the work from different developers. Because they're all seeing the same functionality, you can compare quotes better than if they each come up with their own solutions, design, view on how the app should look and act.

Get at least five quotes, preferably more. Agencies will cost your more than freelancers, and will generally pad their hours or fees. The end result with agencies can literally be worse than freelancers. There can be a huge disparity between quotes (up to 10X difference, I found). Part of it is is trickle-down VC money: agencies that got used to catering VC-funded companies will charge more.

I know none of this seems to talk about the development part, but that's because ideally, by the time you find the right freelance developer, they should be able to just take your mockup and get it done, the way a WordPress designer can take a design and get it done.

Again, all of this assumes no fancy algorithmic or data processing in the background, and also that this isn't a data-intense application.

Wow. Sincere thanks for taking time to write this elaborate answer. This is truly useful.

The one about price (and quality) disparity is very insightful. Didn't know it could vary that much.

The app I am trying to build is not a CRUD app. To give you some hint, it's about collecting data from various sources and putting them in a nice dashboard. The data in question is decently large and it comes from several dozens of sources. Most tech guys would talk it down like a trivial technical problem which can be solved in a hackathon but it does solve a non-trival and a very important problem for my potential customers.

You are right about the mockup since it would give me a great clarity myself as in what the end result would look like.

Again, many thanks for your detailed answer.