The IT industry is very attractive as it brings in big bucks. Every day, more and more people are relying on SaaS for a variety of reasons.
That makes this market a coveted one. However, approximately 21% of startups fail in the process of developing their product.
So, what’s the secret to creating solid and profitable software? Here are the four tips to create a successful SaaS:
1. Establish your objectives
No matter how obvious it may seem, not everyone considers this. The clearer your objectives, the easier it will be to establish a plan and assess results.
That will allow you to fully optimize your time and money.
Then, you need to establish a plan. To achieve the ultimate objective you may need to set smaller ‘relays’ to get to the goal.
If you choose an Agile approach, we recommend laying out a roadmap for each string.
The difference between a plan and a roadmap is that, with the latter, all departments work together. Thus, rather than preparing the plan, then the design, and finally the platform, all experts work in unison.
2. Choose the right approach
At this stage, you need to prepare the project management strategy for your product’s development lifecycle. You have two options to choose from: traditional SPDL or agile SPDL.
The former is a traditional approach based on different project stages. Each stage begins when the previous one is completed. This results in a longer time-to-market that not everyone can afford.
An Agile methodology is based on continuous integration and delivery. Thus, planning, analytics, design, and programming are done simultaneously by coordinated teams.
The goal is to create early usable versions of the product so that they can be released. Thanks to this, the product can evolve based on real user feedback.
However, an Agile approach is harder to control or predict due to its lack of long-term planning. In this sense, it is harder to estimate costs and efforts realistically.
3. Get a qualified team
Now it’s time to assess whether your in-house team is qualified for the task. If you don’t have a team, then it’s time to put one together.
First, you need to think about your involvement. Do you have the skills and knowledge to recruit, guide, and supervise an IT team? If the answer is yes, do you have the time to do it?
A staff augmentation approach can give you more control over the processes while relieving you of some of the responsibility. These services usually include internal management and the teams handle their payrolls and accounting.
The other alternative is to outsource the work to a third party, in which case they are in charge of all the processes and bring the results right to your table. There are plenty of outsourcing options available depending on your needs.
In any case, communication and transparency are always key for a team to work efficiently.
4. Estimate your costs
- Due to the lack of a strict plan, it becomes difficult to estimate the costs and resources in the long term.
- Without a clear final goal, measuring results becomes challenging.
- No clear vision of the final product.
- Fragmented production on each string because each professional is concentrated on a specific feature.
Conclusion
Software development is an exciting journey, but make sure you don’t get lost on the way. These four tips are meant to guide you so that you can create successful and high-quality IT products.
