Does that help?
Very much, thanks.
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When you add a new feature to your existing SaaS, ask yourself if you can make that feature it's own SaaS and simply build it out and let it off into the wild and see how it does on it's own.
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This is a bit more serious to me, so we keep data on what every user does whenever they are in our SaaS. I mean everything.
Could you elaborate on that one a bit? Do you really log every single http request?
Do you have a comparison to what other SaaS providers log (more/less)?
Do you have a use for the logged data other than fraud reduction? E.g. marketing?
When building an app intended for enterprise users, do you know of a way to validate a user is not posing as a company, perhaps with an API? Or do you just handle that with manual approval for each new account?
Let me try to clarify, the app is intended to display data that is company-specific. The userflow is any user with an account can create new entries in the database. Because each user should be a corporate entity, I want to make sure that if someone from Microsoft (or whatever company) makes an account that the user is actually a representative of Microsoft.Not sure I understand what you mean.
Are you trying to turn away customers ( that are companies with an API ) from using your enterprise focused SaaS?
If so, why?
I think this may answer my question:Not sure I understand what you mean.
Are you trying to turn away customers ( that are companies with an API ) from using your enterprise focused SaaS?
If so, why?
Let me try to clarify, the app is intended to display data that is company-specific. The userflow is any user with an account can create new entries in the database. Because each user should be a corporate entity, I want to make sure that if someone from Microsoft (or whatever company) makes an account that the user is actually a representative of Microsoft.
Awesome, I will definitely integrate this in the authentication plan. Thank you for the detailed insight!Ok, so a couple of ways to do this.
For one, I would ban usage of any free email account used to sign up. That would restrict a lot of users that say they are with copmany X, but truely are not potentially. Most, if not all, real corporations will have a domain they use for email. Most real employees won't be using a free email address for their company.
Not that leaves just someone from company Y pretending they are company X.
There are services to help with this too, where you monitor the IP of the user and backtrack who owns that IP. It's not a fool proof way to verify, but it can cut down issues if you used a "layered" approach to drilling down who is who. Clearbit is one such company that can generally tell you, based on IP, what corporation owns/uses the IP the user signed up with. Of note, this would probably work OK with large companies like LinkedIn and Google, but not small companies.
Past that, you could verify the company name on the credit card used to pay and a few other possible small tweaks. Again, all in an effort to keep layering solutions before narrowing down to manually calling and verifying people.
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Ok, so a couple of ways to do this.
For one, I would ban usage of any free email account used to sign up. That would restrict a lot of users that say they are with company X, but truely are not potentially. Most, if not all, real corporations will have a domain they use for email. Most real employees won't be using a free email address for their company.
Now that leaves just someone from company Y pretending they are company X.
There are services to help with this too, where you monitor the IP of the user and backtrack who owns that IP. It's not a fool proof way to verify, but it can cut down issues if you used a "layered" approach to drilling down who is who. Clearbit is one such company that can generally tell you, based on IP, what corporation owns/uses the IP the user signed up with. Of note, this would probably work OK with large companies like LinkedIn and Google, but not small companies.
Past that, you could verify the company name on the credit card used to pay and a few other possible small tweaks. Again, all in an effort to keep layering solutions before narrowing down to manually calling and verifying people.
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What granularity of raw data do you normally want to log?...
The problem with those tools is, they don't really give you 100% of all the RAW data.
You might get some graphs and funnels and nice charts, etc. But I want the RAW data. Like a CSV dump of what that user did. You can't get that really.
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What granularity of raw data do you normally want to log?
I thought of another strategy. Can you email the prospective user a link to create a profile, but not expose the link on the public interface? The only risk would be if the user shared the link with someone, but idk why they would do that.You could also integrate LinkedIn.
Services like Intercom will take a users email and pull up their twitter profile, linkedin profile, etc. Im not saying to use Intercom, I am just saying there is tech out there ( like ClearBit ) that can pull this up for you, for use.
Now in your CRM, you could look at signups and check out their social profiles ( Twitter and LinkedIn ) and see if they actually work at that company. It's not 100% foolproof of course, but I highly doubt someone goes through the trouble of making a fake twitter and fake linkedIn just to use your service.
If they did, well they are going to end up figuring out a way to use it anyway in the future ( like paying someone at company X to get access ).
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You couldI thought of another strategy. Can you email the prospective user a link to create a profile, but not expose the link on the public interface? The only risk would be if the user shared the link with someone, but idk why they would do that.
First, I want to thank you kindly for sharing your experience.
Second, I was wondering if I could ask your advice on a few things.
This past year I have really gotten into entrepreneurship. I have learned a ton about marketing, sales, copywriting, product design, and a little bit of web development.
I have an idea for a SaaS which could solve a huge problem in the higher educational system which I want to sell to instructors, course creators online, and students.
This idea would essentially deliver messages from instructors to students on a periodic basis. I would like it to come in the form of a mobile application users could simply log into.
I have experience in materials engineering and education, analytical skills, and a small amount of python programming, but I haven't yet created a mobile application.
With your expertise I was wondering what advice you would give for the following questions:
- What platform or framework would you recommend for the creation of this application?
- What are the first steps I should take?
- What resources or tools should I use to learn what I need to learn?
- Anything else you wish to add based on what I have said?
Thanks and I can't wait to read your answer.
First, I want to thank you kindly for sharing your experience.
Second, I was wondering if I could ask your advice on a few things.
This past year I have really gotten into entrepreneurship. I have learned a ton about marketing, sales, copywriting, product design, and a little bit of web development.
I have an idea for a SaaS which could solve a huge problem in the higher educational system which I want to sell to instructors, course creators online, and students.
This idea would essentially deliver messages from instructors to students on a periodic basis. I would like it to come in the form of a mobile application users could simply log into.
I have experience in materials engineering and education, analytical skills, and a small amount of python programming, but I haven't yet created a mobile application.
With your expertise I was wondering what advice you would give for the following questions:
- What platform or framework would you recommend for the creation of this application?
- What are the first steps I should take?
- What resources or tools should I use to learn what I need to learn?
- Anything else you wish to add based on what I have said?
Thanks and I can't wait to read your answer.
Hi @eliquid, great read ITT.
The product I am looking at making has decent competition so far, but the subsector itself will grow at a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 38%+ from 2019-2025. So I conclude that there is still room for more players, and a lot of changes in dynamics still to capitalize on.
I do not have domain experience in the field I am interested in, but my father works in one of the niches in the submarket I would be selling to. The question is, how can I identify unique "gaps" or inefficiencies that other companies have not placed their focus on? Or is this just a matter of choosing an "angle", as you stated earlier?
So in that case, I would need to do competitive analysis, and then find which angle the competitors haven't chosen, correct?
I am planning to do a thorough discovery session phase with my father and will use the following as a template to follow: https://clearbridgemobile.com/the-step-by-step-guide-to-product-discovery/
Any tips in differentiating myself and finding unique angles? Best regards.
Hi @eliquid !
I'm an owner of a SaaS which works pretty good. I developed it on my own (code and marketing) and now I kind of have "rich" problems...
I'm not good on the server part. So, my question is where did you host your software to be able to scale infinitely (1000 users to 100 000 users without having troubles)? AWS? Dedicated server?
Or maybe you only made desktop software?
Thanks! I appreciate it!Congrats on the success.
To answer your question:
- Multiple VPS's at Linode.
- A couple at Digital Ocean
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What's your approach on building a SaaS product? How do you balance your own (creative) feature ideas and the needs of customers? What's the ratio here?
Thanks!
Thank you everyone who is participating in this via answers and questions. Both are helpful. My questions are:
- How do you offer upsells with a SAAS company?
- When is a good time to sell for a nice valuation? What processes are needed to be put in place to reduce fees during the M&A?
- SAAS multiplier is about 3-5x?
- When building your website how did you/would you incorporate a iOS and android version while still remaining on a subscription service or would that be another pricing model?
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