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Hello friends 👋,
I want to write about the steps I took to build my first SaaS product and also why I want to be featured on the Toptal Freelance SaaS Developers page and hopefully it will help someone get started building his/her own SaaS business. But first before I jump into that, let's talk about what a SaaS product is and the advantages.
What Is SaaS Product ?
The term SaaS stands for Software as a Service. This is a model where software renders or delivers services via the internet on a subscription basis and enable customers to easily access this services on any devices with a web browser and internet connection.
Advantages Of SaaS Products
In order for you to successfully build a SaaS product, you need to first understand the advantages of this business model and take it as a reference point when building your own SaaS product. There are so many advantages of the SaaS product but here I will only list the key advantages and won't go into details on this article. Here are the list :
Cost effectiveness
Predictable Revenue
Great Flexibility
Effortless Updates
How I built My SaaS Product From Scratch
Like every SaaS product out there, the thing I wanted was a way to solve a problem and offer the solutions as a service via the internet to customers especially those in the Ecommerce space in Africa. So I came up with the idea of building a platform where all local vendors can easily create a front store for their businesses at an affordable rate and must be same or 80% as standard as Shopify. So the first research I did was to first :
Analyze The Market
I did this to first find out if the product will be accepted and find the challenges local vendors in my locality and also students looking out to start their entrepreneurship journey face and when I asked them why they didn't own an online store, they said "It's expensive for a starter like me with little to no knowledge to build an online store and market my products" . With the information I gathered, I was able to know :
Who my target audience are
What their pain points and what their requests are
Who my Competitors are
What were their unique/essential features
Having done my research, I needed to come up with a business plan on how to introduce my product and idea to potential customers. So I needed to start by solving an already existing problem which was on how the Drop shippers in my country run their businesses. I realized must of the duties and processes of drop shipping here in my country where being done manually when there were automated tools on the internet to handle those processes. So I quickly built https://app.storehux.com. A dropshipping and a store management software that saves drop shippers or retail vendors in Africa lots of time and money on the manually done processes on their online business while they focused on what matters most to them. You can find a demo video of how the app works here
Choosing The Technical Stacks For The Dropshipping Software
Knowing that there's no one answer to the question on which or what tech stack and framework to use when building a SaaS product, I started developing the product using the PHP/Laravel framework which I am most comfortable with and this helped in my development speed. Also this also gives me an edge when it comes to hiring other developers to join me and my team because there are a lot of developers out there familiar with this tech stack. When building your SaaS product, you should always do your research on which tech stack fits best and would work best for the business, so you don't run into problems of having to switch tools in the future or finding it difficult to find good and professional developers to help manage and continue the development of the product.
My Final Take On SaaS Product
If you're planning to build a SaaS application or product, ensure your product offers value and automates lots of processes for it's customers or users, even if you're planning on building an already existing SaaS product ensure it meets the demands of your target audience and you can only do so by carrying out a good research as SaaS model is a proven business opportunity that will yield you ton of money if done right.
If you are looking for an expert developer that knows how to build SaaS applications and has a lot of business ideas, I am fully available to join your team and help you bring that SaaS application idea to life and make it a profitable business for you.
learn more about SaaS Applications Here
Contact me via email : paulchibuikeigweze@gmail.com.