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A Failed SaaS Postmortem

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Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#11

Post by jjn2009 »

throwno wrote: post #7
briandoll wrote: post #2

The main point here seems to be that the failure to build a SaaS product is blamed in part on the compounding technical debt incurred due to a fast-moving software ecosystem and the effort involved in keeping up. The point I think most people should consider instead, is that building an app is not the same thing as building a business. Building the app is comparably easy, once you've proven that you understand the ma…

The only problem with not caring about the technology, is if your solution is trivial to replicate then anyone with a bunch of cash can come in with hired gun coders and out advertise you. Hard to replicate technology gives you some kind of a moat to at least slow down copy cats. edit: Oh, I see, the guy in the article was just throwing together random open source stuff not actually developing anything of value. Neve…

network effects and customer base are much more powerful moats than choosing one technology over another or developing your own.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#12

Post by cddotdotslash »

One of the craziest parts of this article to me is the sheer number of technologies he picked right off the bat to implement the service. Datadog? Digital Ocean? Wal-e? If he had gone with a cloud provider like AWS he probably could have cut that list by 2/3 by just using built in solutions.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#13

Post by throwno »

briandoll wrote: post #10
throwno wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem with not caring about the technology, is if your solution is trivial to replicate then anyone with a bunch of cash can come in with hired gun coders and out advertise you. Hard to replicate technology gives you some kind of a moat to at least slow down copy cats. edit: Oh, I see, the guy in the article was just throwing together random open source stuff not actually developing anything of value. Neve…

I'm not sure "hard to replicate technology" is a moat I'd often bet on, given that by definition that does not deliver any specific advantage to your customer. User Experience. Developer Experience. Community. Those are moats you can bet on primarily because it takes so much dedication, expertise, and work. That's not easy to buy.

>User Experience. Developer Experience. Community.

But that's what I'm saying. If you find some solution to a problem that's making decent money, some guy with big capital will just come in and "fast follow" you with better user experience and advertise the shit out of it until they have a better or at least more active community. Like suppose this guy's admissions scheduling app actually started making money. Why wouldn't some big player like Pearson just come in and roll him? They can easily hire a bunch of guys to copy what he's doing and then leverage their existing relationships with the education industry to lock him out.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#14

Post by powowow »

throwno wrote: post #7
briandoll wrote: post #2

The main point here seems to be that the failure to build a SaaS product is blamed in part on the compounding technical debt incurred due to a fast-moving software ecosystem and the effort involved in keeping up. The point I think most people should consider instead, is that building an app is not the same thing as building a business. Building the app is comparably easy, once you've proven that you understand the ma…

The only problem with not caring about the technology, is if your solution is trivial to replicate then anyone with a bunch of cash can come in with hired gun coders and out advertise you. Hard to replicate technology gives you some kind of a moat to at least slow down copy cats. edit: Oh, I see, the guy in the article was just throwing together random open source stuff not actually developing anything of value. Neve…

hard to develop technology is a very narrow moat.

You have the first problem that well-funded competitors can almost certainly replicate whatever you built if they care to do so.

You then have a second problem that well-funded competitors can almost certainly market inferior tech as being equal to or superior to yours, if they care to do so.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#15

Post by paulgb »

cddotdotslash wrote: post #12

One of the craziest parts of this article to me is the sheer number of technologies he picked right off the bat to implement the service. Datadog? Digital Ocean? Wal-e? If he had gone with a cloud provider like AWS he probably could have cut that list by 2/3 by just using built in solutions.

I get your point, but for what it's worth, I moved a service from AWS Lambda to a Digital Ocean Dokku box and the amount of complexity I had to deal with went down dramatically and hosting costs dropped (I was getting enough traffic to break out of the free tier).

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#16

Post by madamelic »

cddotdotslash wrote: post #12

One of the craziest parts of this article to me is the sheer number of technologies he picked right off the bat to implement the service. Datadog? Digital Ocean? Wal-e? If he had gone with a cloud provider like AWS he probably could have cut that list by 2/3 by just using built in solutions.

Or a barebones box from Vultr or Linode then log errors out to stdout, slap an email address on the page and there's your logging and error system.

AWS is massively overcomplicated for an indie SaaS business, and it costs way, way too much.

You can have a box with plenty of room for $5 - $10 / month and it takes about 25 seconds to launch it.

I had 20k concurrent users with a $5 server and Cloudflare. Other people are using serverless solutions, which drive the price even lower.

The author stated as much: keep it simple and boring. He thought he was going boring for a SaaS, but he went way too exciting for what an indie SaaS needs.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#17

Post by anon73044 »

briandoll wrote: post #2

The main point here seems to be that the failure to build a SaaS product is blamed in part on the compounding technical debt incurred due to a fast-moving software ecosystem and the effort involved in keeping up. The point I think most people should consider instead, is that building an app is not the same thing as building a business. Building the app is comparably easy, once you've proven that you understand the ma…

>But if you want to build a SaaS business, keep focused on building the _business_. The app, it turns out, is the easy part.

This. The crux of his issue is focusing too much on tech and not enough on the end user along with the other "Big Design Up Front™" pitfalls.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#18

Post by pbreit »

throwno wrote: post #7
briandoll wrote: post #2

The main point here seems to be that the failure to build a SaaS product is blamed in part on the compounding technical debt incurred due to a fast-moving software ecosystem and the effort involved in keeping up. The point I think most people should consider instead, is that building an app is not the same thing as building a business. Building the app is comparably easy, once you've proven that you understand the ma…

The only problem with not caring about the technology, is if your solution is trivial to replicate then anyone with a bunch of cash can come in with hired gun coders and out advertise you. Hard to replicate technology gives you some kind of a moat to at least slow down copy cats. edit: Oh, I see, the guy in the article was just throwing together random open source stuff not actually developing anything of value. Neve…

Never, ever, ever, ever worry about anyone copying your stuff. Depend on your unique insight. No one can copy that. If in the extremely rare circumstance that someone copies you, be thrilled! That means you are building something valuable (which is extremely rare).

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#19

Post by pbreit »

powowow wrote: post #14
throwno wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem with not caring about the technology, is if your solution is trivial to replicate then anyone with a bunch of cash can come in with hired gun coders and out advertise you. Hard to replicate technology gives you some kind of a moat to at least slow down copy cats. edit: Oh, I see, the guy in the article was just throwing together random open source stuff not actually developing anything of value. Neve…

hard to develop technology is a very narrow moat. You have the first problem that well-funded competitors can almost certainly replicate whatever you built if they care to do so. You then have a second problem that well-funded competitors can almost certainly market inferior tech as being equal to or superior to yours, if they care to do so.

Never, ever, ever, ever worry about anyone copying your stuff. Depend on your unique insight. No one can copy that. If in the extremely rare circumstance that someone copies you, be thrilled! That means you are building something valuable (which is extremely rare).

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#20

Post by [deleted] »

throwno wrote: post #13
briandoll wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "hard to replicate technology" is a moat I'd often bet on, given that by definition that does not deliver any specific advantage to your customer. User Experience. Developer Experience. Community. Those are moats you can bet on primarily because it takes so much dedication, expertise, and work. That's not easy to buy.

>User Experience. Developer Experience. Community. But that's what I'm saying. If you find some solution to a problem that's making decent money, some guy with big capital will just come in and "fast follow" you with better user experience and advertise the shit out of it until they have a better or at least more active community. Like suppose this guy's admissions scheduling app actually started making money. Why wo…

[deleted]
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