SAAS LIFECYCLE: CLOUD BASED. SUBSCRIPTION DEFINED. MICROSERVICES DRIVEN

SaaS lifecycle is different from the regular software product development lifecycle    through its largely cloud residence, subscription-based model, and predominantly microservices architecture. 

Another key factor also frames the steps, pace, and logic of how SaaS is developed: the tug-of-war between investors and users competing for the founder’s attention at the different stages of development.

Funds flowing into this technology segment confirm investors’ interest in the SaaS model, as SaaS capital investment reached a record $94 billion in 2021 in 4459 deals.

According to the April 2022 Gartner worldwide IT spending forecast report, software and SaaS segments are estimated to grow at the most ambitious CAGR of 9.8% and 11.2% in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and to reach three quarters of a trillion dollars in 2023.

In this piece, we look into the key steps of SaaS software development.

SaaS Development Process: High-Impact Factors

The major aspects that determine the service development lifecycle lie in the technology, business model [especially pricing], and security requirements for SaaS domain. We discuss three below:

1. Subscription Model and SaaS-Specific KPIs

Unlike regular software, where users buy the license in a one-time, upfront payment, with a SaaS product you get your money in small chunks over an extended period of time [if your customer doesn’t churn after trying your product for free].

This whole business model conditions and defines a lot of variables during the funding hunt, product design, and development stages as well as during the growth stage.

2. Microservices Architecture

When your services are loosely coupled, it will help you hire quicker into smaller, more agile teams. Then you can release more often, have higher quality code, and enjoy better availability since there is no single point of failure.

Yet such architecture takes quite a bit of extra resources and has its hiccups in terms  of global testing, debugging, and security concerns.

So, you get most of the benefits during the build and deployment phases, but your design and testing may experience some of the negative impact of this architectural layout.

3. Cloud-Native / Hybrid Deployment

Cloud deployment allows users to enjoy your SaaS product from anywhere in the world with the simplest devices as long as they have the internet. You can also scale super quickly in cloud environments.

However, clouds also mean that you will add another half dozen tools to your tech stack and you will need to hire both a FinOps practitioner to keep cloud costs at bay and an AppSec expert to minimize the cybersecurity threats.

What is SaaS Product Development?

SaaS product development is the process of developing a software as a service product that can be accessed via the internet, is subscription-based, and includes design, build, deployment, and testing stages as well as maintenance and updates. A single-feature MVP development is a traditional first significant phase that allows product owners to understand the users’ and the investors’ interest in the product.

Since SaaS products usually continuously add functionality, marketing, product, and engineering teams work closely throughout the development cycle.

Stages of SaaS Development Lifecycle

As a SaaS entrepreneur, you will look to attract both users and investors as early as possible.

Your early adopters will be your most useful source of information and feedback to shape and enhance your product. They will also be your major investment magnet: the more of them you have, the easier it is to get your upcoming SaaS product development phases funded.

Step 1: Conception & Ideation: Defining Your Product

If you aim to create a unique product or make a better version of the existing SaaS solution, the ideation stage can be as short as writing your idea on a napkin or as extensive as creating a fully-fledged investor-ready pitch deck. 

Depending on the team taking part in concept creation, product deliverables may include a brief overview of its key features, users, and the problems it’s going to solve or a detailed product brief.

Step 2. Market and User Research

Analysis and requirements gathering usually includes two major steps:

1. Learning about the market’s size, capacity, and dynamics
2. Competitive realm research, which includes market leader analysis and failures post mortems

In the ideal scenario, a SaaS product team will be agile and multidisciplinary, where all members—PM, BA, software engineers, designer, DevOps, QA expert—get to contribute to the final product.

Step 3: Planning and Road Mapping

Based on your research, product features should gain more definition and nuance from both marketing and technical perspectives.

At this stage, a SaaS product development team will make a few fundamental choices:

1. Initial team composition
2. Cloud service provider
3. Tech stack
4. Initial product features
5. Monetization / pricing model

The deliverables may include a detailed road map, product descriptions, team structure, high-level budget, and business plan.

Step 4: SaaS Product Design

Product design may start as a mobile-first version for the B2C SaaS solutions, but most B2B systems will start from the desktop variant.

Low-fidelity prototypes can be quite basic, but contemporary web design tools allow for creating sophisticated wireframes as well as clickable high-fidelity prototypes.

The role of a UX/UI designer is evident at this stage: the design’s visual appeal and intuitiveness are critical to elevate a mediocre idea in the eyes of the user and investor alike.

Page hierarchy, easy sign up, navigation, sorting and filtering functionalities, gamification elements, and intuitive onboarding are pivotal design elements.

Step 5: SaaS Solution Architecture

This stage is rather fluid in terms of when it belongs on the SaaS product lifecycle timeline. Depending upon your recruitment plan as well as funding available from the get-go, SaaS solution architecture may kick in at a later stage.

For example, if you don’t have enough human talent or funds to develop a high-fidelity MVP with lots of functionality, but you have the resources to go in with a simple landing page with a key function, you are still a long way from detailing the architecture.

Once your project and resources are mature enough for this stage, a solutions architect will map out the cloud services needed, key features [services], databases, API management, middleware, data storage solutions, load balancer components, etc.

Scalability is one of the pre-requirements for any SaaS tool, so a savvy architect will consider all FinOps best practices to keep your actual compute capacity as close to the paid ones as possible. This way, you will be close to what you actually consume, even if you have spikes, peaks, and valleys in your consumption and you need to grow your resources overnight.

Step 6:  SaaS Lifecycle MVP Development

With your design and architecture phases complete, it’s now time for frontend and backend software engineers to do their part.

You will have to decide if your MVP will be a mobile or a desktop version, and in the case of the former if it will be Android or iOS [doing both is prohibitive in terms of MVP]. For all B2B products, in our experience it’s safe to go with the desktop MVP.

As Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, declared:

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

So, MVP is not the time to fine-tune every detail to perfection, but rather to showcase the tool’s core functionality. As a reminder, Mr. Hoffman’s legendary quote was actually meant for a working product, not this earlier MVP stage of the SaaS lifecycle.

Step 7: Deployment

Deployment and testing can be done simultaneously. In fact, many companies start with some tests as early as the build phase of the SaaS development process. This basic DevSecOps best practice helps to deliver a better code quicker and with less friction and downtime on the way.

When deploying your SaaS application, DevOps specialists will install, configure, check, and update the code your team has written and tested into environments that will make it available to users via a URL.

Application deployment is also a continuous process further down the line. As most of the microservices are added / updated on the way, a few different deployment methodologies are applied: ramped, recreate, shadow, and blue/green.

Step 8: Testing and Optimization

Continuous testing and integration are a reality for all successful SaaS tools now out there. As new features are released frequently, manual tests would be impossible in terms of time and human resources. 

Mobile application testing services on their own are expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.37% between 20221 and 2027, following the growth in the adoption of mobile, and the increase in cybersecurity threats.

Black-box testing, white-box testing, regression and performance testing, functional and non-functional testing, and manual and automated methods are all employed depending on the case requirements.

As bugs get discovered, they get fixed not to grow technical debt and to have fast software performance.

Step 9: Turn your MVP into an MMP

Once your funding is approved based on the MVP—or when the first batch of the early adopters give you enough feedback to proceed—it’s time to develop the basic carcass into a fully-fledged MMP.

An MMP [minimum marketable product] will have a more commercial look, be configured and integrated with all the DevSecOps tools, include payment integration, feature more robust functionality, with reliable user and admin account modules and IAM setup.

Taking an MVP to an MMP is a team effort that will include a PM, a BA, a designer, developers, testers, and DevOps. Marketing experts and a product owner should also be tightly integrated into the Software as a Service development process.

Step 10: SaaS Product Launch

Launching a SaaS product is always a nerve-racking experience, but you can minimize the number of gray hairs by developing an elaborate SaaS product marketing plan and following it through.

C-Level marketing and technical crews all have their respective fields to oversee, and each is critical to overall success. 

DevOps and software engineers should have checked and tested all the released features at every angle to ensure smooth sailing after release. Payment gateway and compliance issues come forward, since marketplaces have strict requirements and App Store Optimization [ASO] has to do with legal, technical, and marketing facets. As for marketing, the Day Zero of the SaaS launch is the epitome of all prep work done across all channels and methods such as landing pages, email lists, LinkedIn groups and ads, Google ads, social media contests, referral marketing, and influencer marketing.

Step 11: Continuous Product Enhancement and Scaling

Once you get that initial traction and hopefully funding, it’s time to fine-tune your product: expand it and pivot it, if need be.

Getting as much feedback as possible from your team, users, stakeholders, and investors is a good thing as long as you have a robust prioritization engine within the team that can help separate the wheat from the chaff. You cannot disperse your limited resources into every single idea or enhancement upgrade but you need to focus on the highest ROI improvements.

You must get your customer service right and shower your users with lots of love—it keeps your customers continuing their monthly subscription, which is the SaaS business’ bread and butter.

SaaS application scaling is also an activity whose success depends a lot on preparation. You need to be ready to scale when you plan your microservices architecture, select a cloud service provider, choose a specific cloud service region and zones, and select instance type, database, and tooling.

SaaS Development Process: Hiring Experts Helps

It’s not unusual for big businesses to get seasoned, battle-tested CEOs and ex-CEOs on board, as big tech knows the true value of experience.

However, experience can come in different ways. It doesn’t have to be expensive or cost you half the team’s stock budget. In fact, when it comes to technical wisdom, it’s a win-win situation: hiring a SaaS software development partner is both cheaper than having an inhouse team and comes with lots of expertise.

With over 900 tech-savvy experts on board, Dev.Pro has helped develop a string of SaaS products. One of our major, long-term partners, Salesloft, is a leading sales and marketing SaaS system.

Looking to fortify your inhouse SaaS development team with some veteran outsourced software engineers? Book your call with Dev.Pro’s devoted expert associates!

SaaSDLC: Expert Knowledge Bites