Simple
In the beginning, it will benefit you greatly to keep it simple. A complex design or user interface is hard to use. A complex process is hard to follow. Complex code is hard to debug. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” and he was smarter than you and I combined…I’m quite sure of that.
Supportable
Fixing bugs is one of the most despised task by most developers. They don’t often have a direct connection to the pain bugs because they’re not the ones dealing with angry customers and overflowing queues of support tickets. Building a buggy product is not sustainable because you’ll waste all your development time fixing one-off issues. If every one of your clients requires even a little time each day, week, or month to setup and support your product your profit margin decreases dramatically. Find a way to connect your developers to your support team and your client base; your margins will thank me.
Self-Serviceable
If you want to keep support costs low then self-service must be high. Technology has become so advanced today that almost any switch a developer can flip can also be flipped through the user interface in a web browser. Give your customers the tools they need to flip whatever switches they want. If your product is truly so complex that self-service isn’t the right model then make sure you’re charging appropriately for setup and support.
Standardized
“Everything has its place and there’s a place for everything.” That’s what my grandpa used to say about his wood shop. This is also a motto you should adopt when building features. If you can’t find the right module or tier in which to sell your new feature then maybe it’s not the right time to build it. Start with the end in mind and figure out how to make your offering more valuable by building features that enhance each module or tier. Adding a module or tier without some discussion, planning, and strategy will result in a hodgepodge of messy code and a poorly designed user interface.
Synthesized
The reality of the current SaaS landscape is that the more integrated your product is, the more sticky it becomes. Sticky products have lower churn rates. A surefire way to gain more users or prevent users from leaving is to integrate your product with other applications they’re already using. Ask your users what their favorite applications are and if you can make their lives easier by integrating with them. Develop your product in such a way that others may want to integrate with you. Web 2.0 fundamentally shifted the way we think about sharing information, so don’t be a hoarder; synthesize your platform and data with great partners.
Product
You’ve done some great planning so far and the fun is just about to start. But before you jump in the driver’s seat it’s time to start planning your route. Without a map and a path, you’ll lose your way much more frequently than you’d like. The Product section of the SaaS Field Manual is your opportunity to chart your course and contains the following milestones: Minimum Viable Concept, User Research, Ideas, Goals, Features, Components, Initiatives, Modules, and Offerings.
MINIMUM VIABLE CONCEPT (MVC)
Before you write a single line of code, a much less risky proposition would be to create a minimally viable concept. Inexpensive website hosting, a Wordpress template, and a few hundred dollars in pay-per-click ads will go a long way to proving out your concept before you start hiring designers and developers. Go one step further and start designing a no-code prototype to get ready for user research.
Use the following space to draw a sketch of your MVC's landing page.
USER RESEARCH
Now that you’ve proven out your concept you need to take all your semi-fictional Personas and your Ideal Client Profile and find non-fictional people to talk to. What pain does your product help them remove? What features do they think are most valuable? How much would they pay for a service like this? These are just a few of the many questions you can ask during your user research phase.
Use the following space to document which potential users you will speak to and what questions you might ask them.
GOALS
You’ve spent some quality time with your future users and should understand what kind of pain they’re experiencing in their lives and how your product might solve them. The next step is to create three to five goals that you would like your product to obtain. This could be “Become the #1 SMB CRM in the market,” or “Get the product to market in three months” or “Increase lead conversation for our clients by 20%.” Having a few well defined goals will be the lane lines (smaller than the guide rails your mission offers) for the next few months.
Use the following space to document the goals for your product.
IDEAS
Ideas are just that…ideas. They aren’t fully baked features with requirements or priorities. They’re simply a collection of things your product could include and ways to remove a user’s pain. You’re going to have a lot of ideas that may or may not make it into your platform. Ideas area cheap—features are not. Don’t get too attached to an idea until you can validate it with your prospects or customers. Get all your stakeholders in a room, grab some Post-It notes and walk through an Impact vs. Effort exercise. The ideas from the top-left quadrant should be promoted to features.
Use the following space to document the top ideas you'd like to include in your product. Now draw an Impact vs. Effort quadrant and place your issues appropriately.
FEATURES
After your Impact vs. Effort exercise the ideas in the top-left quadrant, and any dependencies they would rely on, get promoted from an Idea to a Feature. Anything demonstrating wide acceptance and low cost amongst your research groups make for a great minimally lovable product. Each sticky note/feature represent a discreet piece of functionality that will eventually be built into your product.
Use the following space to document the ideas with the highest impact and lowest effort.
COMPONENTS
Components are a combination of features that work together to create a small block of functionality. Create a user, edit a user, and delete a user can be grouped into a User Maintenance component. Some less complicated products may not need this level of detail. Use your best judgment and know you can easily begin grouping features into components when your product becomes complex enough for the added organization.
Use the following space to group your features together into components.
INITIATIVES
Initiatives are higher level objectives comprised of features and components that, when complete, seek to achieve one of your goals. Initiatives may span multiple months and cross multiple teams and projects. Most simply, if I added the User Maintenance component to the Password Reset and Permissions components I may end up with a User Administration Initiative. This initiative may assist in meeting my goal of “Build a 100% self-service platform for small businesses without IT staff.”
Use the following space to document your most important initiatives.
MODULES
A module represents a collection of features grouped around a specific subject matter or use case. If your platform was originally built to be accessible through a web browser, you may build a mobile app with its own set of features. This mobile app and features