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SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

landshark.io

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Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#21

Post by Jugurtha »

vagrantJin wrote: post #18
Jugurtha wrote: post #3

This is a pretty established distribution model often called "bottom up" approach, and it's particularly relevant to enterprise sales where you allow the users to start using the software without friction [something that was proper to "consumer" applications] and then allow management to pay for that software, or users to pull their corporate credit card and buy what their budget allows. One turn-off for us for machi…

I dont like talking to sales people but I get where they are coming from. It might also be using the opportunity to do some discovery as to what people are using the platform for and who are those people. But I agree that they should make provisions for people who just want to pay and get to business.

>It might also be using the opportunity to do some discovery as to what people are using the platform for and who are those people

The way we do that is giving people access to the platform, letting some time go by, then engaging the users and asking questions. We also have Slack channels in case they have problems.

Why we leave them alone: because I don't like it when someone immediately engages us asking us a bunch of questions when we start using something, or try and up-sell right when I'm discovering the product. I also don't like energetic chatbots popping up on different tabs of the same website, making all kinds of sounds wanting to get my attention to help me. Back off, I'll close that site and will not visit it again.

We give people time so we could at least observe what's broken. Did the person not start using the product immediately? Why? Was the user unsuccessful accomplishing a key task with a key feature of the product? Why? Is it a problem of discoverability, or is it just that it is not our target user? How can we improve that either way?

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#22

Post by mcs_ »

One of the issues of making all the services together is the discount. Implement a discount system across multiple SaaS has to do with sales strategy.

Standardize everything, including the costs, seems like the end of creativity. However, creating a massive checklist that makes the user choose between services and, step by step, simulate final costs (which will include computation, task management, monitoring, customer support, etc.) is a titanic job that could change within the next generation.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#23

Post by Jugurtha »

jariel wrote: post #19
Jugurtha wrote: post #3

This is a pretty established distribution model often called "bottom up" approach, and it's particularly relevant to enterprise sales where you allow the users to start using the software without friction [something that was proper to "consumer" applications] and then allow management to pay for that software, or users to pull their corporate credit card and buy what their budget allows. One turn-off for us for machi…

If it's an important service it's not a big deal at all to speak to someone, and frankly, even though they do this for price discrimination, the fact is they can incredibly helpful and save you a boat load of time and effort trying to understand the product in many cases. Yes, some things should 'just be self serve' but many things, not so much.

>the fact is they can incredibly helpful and save you a boat load of time and effort trying to understand the product in many cases.

I take having to explain what our product does to users as a failure on our part. We have the same mentality when we have to personally explain what code does to our colleagues. We take the necessary measures of using better abstractions, writing documentation and Wikis, simplifying code, and making efforts so that "failure demand" does not arise.

In terms of product, it's either our documentation sucks, or a problem of "affordances and signifiers", or a problem of targeting the "wrong" users.

See also: https://vanguard-method.net/failure-demand/

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#24

Post by villgax »

Kharvok wrote: post #14

I should be able to license any Saas tool without talking to a sales rep or doing some kind of "scoping" call.

This is a technique many companies employ when the product is inferior, they do not want the competition to evaluate their products/offerings without signing contracts.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#25

Post by dannyw »

I feel like the main problem here is an overly bureaucratic and suffocating organization. Say what you want about change being slow, but more nimble competitors will eventually eat their lunch.

So don't be the the subject of this story.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#26

Post by alangibson »

dannyw wrote: post #25

I feel like the main problem here is an overly bureaucratic and suffocating organization. Say what you want about change being slow, but more nimble competitors will eventually eat their lunch. So don't be the the subject of this story.

There are many, many huge corporations that aren't going away and aren't changing any time soon. In the mean time, the SaaS industry is missing out on billions if I'm right.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#28

Post by m12k »

vagrantJin wrote: post #18
Jugurtha wrote: post #3

This is a pretty established distribution model often called "bottom up" approach, and it's particularly relevant to enterprise sales where you allow the users to start using the software without friction [something that was proper to "consumer" applications] and then allow management to pay for that software, or users to pull their corporate credit card and buy what their budget allows. One turn-off for us for machi…

I dont like talking to sales people but I get where they are coming from. It might also be using the opportunity to do some discovery as to what people are using the platform for and who are those people. But I agree that they should make provisions for people who just want to pay and get to business.

They might also want to massively price segment. Basically they don't want to quote you a price until they've got a feel for where your pain point is. If you're a whale, they want to reserve the right to bleed you dry by not preemptively quoting a lower sticker price way below your budget. But yeah, to me it still just screams "if you have to ask, you can't afford it".

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#29

Post by pforret »

I had a similar idea recently after hearing a CIO say that there was only 1 (one) corporate credit card in his 1000+ employees company, and it was the CEO's. For him, SaaS on a credit card was a no-go, it needed to be a monthly invoice.

I think it's an opportunity for a new kind of financial business, where SaaS subscriptions can be ordered (with some kind of approval workflow) by a selection of LargeCorp employees, and there is only 1 monthly grouped invoice to LargeCorp, with a known and pre-approved PO number.

Money could even be made by getting the money in from the LargeCorps earlier than it's being paid out to the SaaS services. Or a simple markup.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#30

Post by alangibson »

Jugurtha wrote: post #3

This is a pretty established distribution model often called "bottom up" approach, and it's particularly relevant to enterprise sales where you allow the users to start using the software without friction [something that was proper to "consumer" applications] and then allow management to pay for that software, or users to pull their corporate credit card and buy what their budget allows. One turn-off for us for machi…

My main point is that this bottom up approach doesn't work as well as it could simply because of the difficulty of navigating purchasing processes. I know my team would have bought easily 5x what we did if we didn't have to invest 4 to 6 months in getting a vendor set up for each SaaS we wanted. It just wasn't worth the hassle.
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