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The Business of SaaS

stripe.com

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Re: The Business of SaaS

#81

Post by nickjj »

alex_hitchins wrote: post #69
nickjj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the course description page on my platform doesn't mention the new bonus RESTful API section yet. I was going to update that once all of the videos are recorded. That's on my short term radar and it's what I'm working on for a few hours a day as we speak. Pluralsight is ok but they are only interested in very short courses in a tech space that isn't already crowded with content. That makes sens…

Interesting, I think PS have at least a few long courses. I'm sure I've seen a few in the 10 hour region. It's been a while since I browsed about looking for something interesting though. I'm thinking I could do 10 hours as an hour or two a day over a few weeks. I need to decide if it's the tooling holding me back or the MVP. Easy to focus on technology, pitting this against that when really, anything up and working…

I'm not too close with PS but the last time I talked to their content director they mentioned wanting to focus on shorter courses and much preferred a bunch of short courses that are loosely coupled but still related vs. 1 longer course.

Maybe that's something they are pushing for moving forward.

For something like this Flask course, I've had people tell me they cranked through it in 1 day at 1.5x speed, and others have taken it multiple times over the course of a few months and still reference it a year later.

I think it really depends on your level of experience. I'm a big fan of "doing" and while the course does have a lot of watching, there are self guided homework assignments to make modifications to the code base (they are presented as real life feature requests).

If you did all of the assignments, there's probably 40 hours worth of content to go through, but those assignments are really your chance to get your hands dirty and start practicing what you learn.

A lot of people also build up their own app side by side while watching, which is a great way to follow along if you already have an idea. It takes longer, but IMO the goal here is to become a solid developer, not rush through it and do the minimum.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#82

Post by mrisoli »

nickjj wrote: post #31
bitL wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try to take "The Build a SaaS app with Flask" course on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/the-build-a-saas-app-with-flask-course... I found it very well made and you might ship a simple SaaS within a week, including Stripe subscription. You'd also learn about Docker deployment there. Themeable using Twitter's Bootstrap as well. Now just get an idea for a profitable offering and you are golden! ;-)

Hi, Course author here. Thanks a lot for posting this (and for signing up). But, it's worth noting that if you buy the course on my platform at https://buildasaasappwithflask.com/ there are additional perks you won't get on Udemy. For example I'm in the process of adding a new bonus section to the course that goes over building RESTful APIs with Flask. I've already released the source code and 1 video for it on my ow…

Found the course very interesting and it's something I intend to build upon. However, I've done similar stuff with rails since it has more batteries included and found it easier of course.

However, this comes to mind: https://elsyms.com/the-art-of-over-engineering-your-side-pro...

This was followed by a discussion on HN which a lot of people enjoy over-engineering side projects because they use it as a sandbox to learn or test different things, and I relate, so I was looking for as much material on including as many buzzwords as possible on a saas app/business/tool set(microservices, kubernetes, docker, UI frameworks, mobile app, graphQL, whatever else is out there), I'm pretty sure I could get each piece from different sources, but is there someone who covers overblowing everything? Or maybe one could build a curriculum out of several different online courses?

Re: The Business of SaaS

#83

Post by jwr »

ultrasounder wrote: post #75
jwr wrote: post #65

Fantastic article. I wish I had access to that sort of knowledge before I started my own SaaS [1]. I'd like to underline two points, in case anyone reading this is thinking about starting their own bootstrapped SaaS (I guess many HN readers are): * The long slow SaaS ramp of death is true. SaaS businesses, especially bootstrapped (and cash-starved) ones do not grow quickly. It takes years, as in more than one, and po…

Technical details, for those so inclined: the software is written in ClojureScript (compiled to highly optimized JavaScript) on the client side, using React.js for user interface updates, and Clojure on the server side, running in a JVM (Java Virtual Machine). It uses the RethinkDB distributed database for data storage. Interesting choice of Tech stack. Care to explain why you went with Clojure backend and ClojureScr…

Those are very pragmatic choices. I don't think I could a) tackle the complexity and b) achieve the performance I wanted without Clojure and ClojureScript.

RethinkDB is used for two reasons:

1. It's the only database that provides changefeeds that I need to implement real-time updates for users. Complete changefeeds, as in: get an initial state and then updates.

2. I wanted to easily solve replication, fault-tolerance and scalability, RethinkDB gets all of them right, at least for the levels of scalability that I require.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#84

Post by itwy »

mooreds wrote: post #78
itwy wrote: post #76

The author is an overrated word-seller. Why would I take startup advice from a full-time employee? Downvote away.

His history and relationships with many startups?

Nothing stellar about his history apart from fooling the HN community with his authoritative tone.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#85

Post by alex_hitchins »

ci5er wrote: post #80
alex_hitchins wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment I'm leaving myself open to any good oportuity that comes along. I have a feeling B2B would be easier however this is only based on my assumptions. I'll not be in the position of getting anywhere near those figures you shoot for and considering this will be my first, I'm keeping my feet firmly on the ground. I've just spent all my career to date (15 years +) building products for other people that I feel…

I hear you. I had a pretty amazing job at Motorola (remember them? :-) ) when I moved back to the US from Japan. They wanted me to run around the world (on their credit card) to figure out what business they needed to be next. I found one. They didn't get it. I ended up quitting: "Fine - I will do it myself". I remember the first meetings I had a 6.30am or 7.00am at breakfast places with VCs... They would listen and…

Thanks for your posts, very encouraging and all good advice. I'm going to booststrap for the first one. As you say, try > fail, try again > fail, try yet again > modicum of interest.

Really is good to hear your words of encouragement.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#86

Post by threeseed »

gfodor wrote: post #28

patio11 refers to subscription based software as a "financialization" of it, but I'd argue it runs deeper: it turns software from a single, large "opt-in" transaction, to a small "opt-in" transaction followed by a series of "opt-out" decision points for customers, putting more of the burden on the customer to disengage vs the business to sell the customer on the latest version every couple of months. This runs into s…

> Should we expect them to do this given that doing so may kill their entire business?

Absolutely.

Don't forget that these customers may just file a chargeback through their bank. I did this with a service called Classpass which misleadingly kept you signed up without any notice. I and my partner both filed chargebacks and overturned 6 months of subscriptions.

That sort of thing can really harm a SaaS on a number of fronts and so IMHO they should ask the customer after one billing cycle and no activity.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#87

Post by threeseed »

gnode wrote: post #70
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given the difference between "existential risk" and "profitable enterprise" is a 5% change in churn rate, these customers may make all the difference! That's exactly how it works. > How does a company balance reducing churn with ensuring that customers who (perhaps temporarily) have dis-engaged can easily turn off the software? The ideal model in my opinion (but that one is obviously not going to maximize profits/r…

I can imagine this driving providers to work around that, structuring their service such that they can argue the user is still engaging with the service passively. For example, having data stored on their servers is use (as I may later want to use it, and incurs them a cost to store it). Or, perhaps being emailed updates about my credit score could be regarded as engagement as they can't necessarily tell whether I am…

> I can imagine this driving providers to work around that

And those providers will be punished by consumers for it.

One angry customer can cause all sorts of damage.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#88

Post by mooreds »

mooreds wrote: post #77
ams6110 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a lot of SaaS markets where the customer needs high touch but can only pay low touch prices. That's not a fun place to live, though it can be a good place to start and then move upmarket. This just seems like a really bad place to start. Do you have an example where it worked?

Hmmm. Maybe mind body? QuickBooks? Any saas product that is a crucial part of a business will necessarily be high touch. The reason why it might be a good place to start is because you can find enthusiastic customers that are ill served.

Actually, my examples are probably bad, I was thinking about them in the early days, but those are low touch businesses now.

Re: The Business of SaaS

#89

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

lettergram wrote: post #53

Well.. after reading those conversion rates - I feel pretty happy with my conversions :D I've been using Stripe and Stripe Atlas since 2016, and it's helped me grow my business well. Slowly iterating. My particular tactic is to give users a full refund - every month - they give me feedback via a survey: https://projectpiglet.com/ It's actually been super nice because people are super willing to pay after I build out…

>My particular tactic is to give users a full refund - every month - they give me feedback via a survey

Nice, I'm gonna steal this idea!

Re: The Business of SaaS

#90

Post by mooreds »

bfred_it wrote: post #79
amelius wrote: post #73

Nice article, but the most interesting question remains unanswered: how/where to find SaaS business ideas?

Hang out with people and hear their problems. Usually these are not as clear as "I wish I had a way to access my home PC files from work" but more like "damn, I left by USB card at home!" (hinting at Dropbox)

"Hang out with [regular] people, [preferably those controlling budget at a business]" is how I'd put it :).
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