Do’s and don’ts from SaaS software entrepreneurs. In building and advising many SaaS software startups over the years, I have compiled a list of some of the lessons learned, here are a few on the list:

Focus on the customer (market need/problem) first, then the potential solutions.***

Build fast, test fast, fail fast, recover fast.

Just because you think it is a good idea, does not mean others will pay for it.

If your SaaS software and business model does not scale, you are doomed to fail.

Experience is what you get in SaaS software development when your software does not perform to requirements.

User experience (UX) and what users say about it, will largely determine success of the software.

Startup SaaS is hard work, be prepared for long hours, no vacation, and no breaks.

How you go to market is as, or more important than the software.

The reason for bootstrapping is to get something up and going. The goal of bootstrapping is to get out of bootstrapping. The way out of bootstrapping is through process definition and implementation.

Find others that align to your passion as a founder, hire them.

One of my first interview questions: have you worked at a startup previously?

Full stack engineers don’t exist, full stack aware engineers are worth their weight in gold.

An experienced SaaS technology advisor is worth their weight in gold.  He/She has experienced successes and failures along the road and will save you WAY MORE money than you pay them.

Building software is expensive, only build it once. That means doing the hard work of discovery, design and testing before deploying.

Test you can everything in the market, be objective with results.

Be clear about how you intend to make money, not raise money.

Don’t fall in love with any technology. (database, design pattern, language, cloud service, etc.) those are tools.

Get the right tool for the job, but do it manually, or on a spreadsheet first.

User stories, use cases, and other documentation help developers, adding context to the stories through video calls is invaluable to get what you want developed in your SaaS solution.

Don’t assume anything when it comes to developing software, test and validate!

Include a social impact statement, do some good for the world.

Please share you thoughts and things you have learned here.  We can all learn from each other. (we all fail, we can learn much from others sharing stories of success and failure)

I offer “SaaS Therapy” at no cost.  You can book a time or contact me at alb@criticalgoals.com.