A successful Saas product growth strategy is an action plan that aims to increase your market share. It can be long-term or short-term depending on your business goals and helps boost sales and profits. These strategies can be achieved by developing a plan that fits your company’s goals and adding new features and functionality to existing products. It can also get done by using existing resources and consumer data.
Do Prototypes And Get Necessary Feedback From Investors.
Every startup has a core idea that it wants to solve a specific pain point for its clients. However, it can be hard to keep up with the constantly changing features of a product or service. Instead of building a digital Frankenstein, try taking a different approach. Also, instead of trying to create a perfect product for everyone, try developing a vision that works for everyone.
A prototype is an initial model built to test a design idea. It’s a tool that enables designers to identify product areas that they can improve. It can also help them perfect a solution before it gets implemented.
Although prototypes get commonly used in various industries, they can also benefit new entrepreneurs. They can help minimize costs and improve the quality of the product. Unfortunately, many startups tend to add new features and functionality to their products to make them more useful. It can lead to a product that’s not ideal for the users. Having a prototype allows you to develop a solution designed to meet their obligations.
Many people confuse the concept of a prototype with a design. A design represents what the SaaS product looks like, while a prototype shows the product’s core functionality. Although beauty does not always mean the same to everyone, a well-designed effect can benefit investors and ordinary people. A well-designed product can be very profitable for a startup.
Aside from the design process, a good prototype is also significant to a business. It shows potential investors that you are serious about developing something they can use. A good prototype is also vital to show potential investors that you are serious about designing something that they can use. It shows that you are knowledgeable about the product and willing to make changes to improve it.
Use MVPs To Enter The Market ASAP
An MVP (Minimal Viable Product) is a simplified version of a product that you should use to gather customer feedback and validate its viability. It’s not a full version of the product, but it’s more of an investment in validating your idea.
Using MVPs has numerous advantages to your business when trying to penetrate the market; Your team only focuses on the functionality of your SaaS. Developing a fully functional product is not as important as creating a simple prototype to test. Also, it is a low-risk investment that allows you to gather feedback from customers and stakeholders faster. It also saves you time and money.
Getting early access to your SaaS product helps gather valuable feedback and improve future development outcomes. A good SaaS MVP can also help you secure funding. It can help you demonstrate the potential of your product and its features to potential investors. However, developing an MVP can be challenging, especially if you have a small budget.
Ways To Make MVPs Even Faster
While an MVP is typically delivered quickly, there are ways to make it even faster. One of these is implementing a backend as a service (BaaS) platform, allowing developers to automate specific processes by integrating with other third-party services. Here, developers can focus on developing
apps instead of handling backend processes. With the help of APIs, they can automate various operations such as database management and system updates.
The most common tech stack is JavaScript, commonly used for developing web apps. Another popular programming language includes Flutter for developing mobile apps. If you consider using a complex solution, avoid short-term decisions that lead to long-term work.
A low-code platform is a dedicated software development environment that allows you to build and deploy applications with minimal coding. It can help speed up the development process and improve the time-to-market. They get made with reusable modules and ready-made code.
A manual-first MVP is a technique that can get used to automate the development of a new feature or service without spending a lot of time and money developing complex machine-learning algorithms. For instance, if you have an idea for a movie recommendation app, you can use this method to test its effectiveness without spending a lot of money.
Deploy Often And Regular
DevOps aims to reduce costs by implementing various deployment strategies and tools such as continuous integration and deployment. However, it focuses on the constant improvement of the processes.
The concept of DevOps got introduced to change how we approach specific problems. It aims to improve SaaS quality by combining software development operations and the management of IT. It is complementary to the Agile methodology used to develop software.
Four key metrics measure the DevOps process’s effectiveness: lead time for a change, frequency, failure rate, and time to restore. Many companies are reluctant to improve their systems and procedures due to the lack of budget or vision to implement these metrics.
However, deploying small and often can be more profitable than deploying in larger batches. We tend to spend more time testing and resolving issues in larger deployments. It gets caused by various factors such as multitasking, poor focus, and a slow product feedback cycle.
The direct costs associated with increasing the number of deployments is higher due to the complexity of the changes and the time it takes to diagnose and resolve them. In addition, the cost of deploying multiple services is higher due to the need to perform parallel work.
Although minor changes can be very profitable, they are not free. Every deployment has various costs, such as infrastructure and people. Having fewer deployments also means that people are less likely to spend time on it. The decrease in the cost of doing business is a lure for companies. However, it can also create an illusion by not using enough money on CD pipelines and infrastructure.
The increasing complexity of maintaining software due to the lack of small steps increases the likelihood of failure. This issue can also lead to more enormous maintenance efforts as many changes get brought in. It’s also possible to have newly discovered security vulnerabilities that cause poor performance and customer dissatisfaction. However, implementing a SaaS development strategy that focuses on reducing the cost of maintaining software can avoid becoming costly.
The cost of maintaining a new feature gets added to the project’s total cost, which is the sum of the previous prices. After a new feature hits the market, we quickly learn if it works or not. Doing so helps us develop valuable features instead of spending more time on them. Getting feedback and early feedback is very important to avoid making poor product decisions. Doing so can help us improve our decisions and avoid making costly mistakes.
Big Bang software releases require continuous multitasking. When batch size increases, many tasks need to get performed parallel, creating significant problems. It can lead to people getting disconnected from the previously completed work. The high level of risk involved in managing large batches can lead to low psychological safety and stress levels.
Despite the advantages of minor batch software releases, deploying big ones is not ideal. Doing so can take a lot of time and effort. Instead, focus on releasing little and often releases. Minor improvements can make a massive difference in the quality of the software and its deployments. Doing so doesn’t require a big project. Instead, focus on improving the small changes in each development cycle.
Build-in Small Feedback Loops From Users
A customer feedback program is a strategy that aims to continuously improve the customer experience by collecting and analyzing feedback from both the customers and the company. This process can be done through various methods such as surveys, online reviews, and in-person meetings.
Today, most consumers care about a positive customer experience, it is why SaaS platforms must implement a customer feedback loop. This guide will walk you through creating a customer feedback program and how it can help improve your business processes.
Stages Of Building Feedback Loops From Customers
The customer feedback process can be broken down into four phases: collecting, analyzing, testing, and following up with customers. This guide will walk you through each step of the process.
Feedback Collection
The first step in the feedback loop is to collect customer feedback. It can get done in various ways, such as through online review platforms, phone calls, and product suggestion forums. It would be best to collect this feedback to improve upon what you’re doing well.
You can also use survey tools to collect customer feedback. For instance, if you’re in a brick-and-mortar establishment, you might rely on Google reviews to measure customer satisfaction. Software companies also rely on review platforms to gather feedback.
Analyzing Data
Analyze the feedback data collected using various tools to understand how to take action. Most feedback collection tools have dashboard features that allow you to visualize the data.
After analyzing the feedback data, you might start to notice patterns. For instance, if a customer is giving you a poor review, they might also repeatedly refer to the same pain points. You might also notice that the product’s dashboard is not very clear.
You can then feed it directly to your SaaS product team to address the issues in taking feedback. For instance, if a customer has a technical problem, you can create a short report that will get sent to the team responsible for developing the product.
Even if the team is not directly responsible for the product, keeping feedback top-of-mind is still essential. It will allow the customer to be the center of attention and put them at the forefront of the process.
Feedback Application And Testing
After reviewing your feedback, it’s time to start testing. For instance, if you need to improve a support page, you can try one variation against another. The winner should be the one that delivers the most clarity.
It’s also a good idea to gather additional customer feedback, especially those who gave you feedback the first time around. It is a step in the third stage of your feedback process that can help improve your relationship with them.
Following Up
Follow up with your customers to get the most out of their feedback. When it comes to feedback, you must follow up with them directly. For instance, if you’ve taken a customer’s suggestion to improve your SaaS product, send them an email to let them know that the feedback has helped your team.
You can also make the customer feel heard by demonstrating the importance of their feedback. It is very different from simply acknowledging that their feedback gets received. It’s about making them feel valued and included in your team.
While responding to your customers, ask them if they’d like to update their reviews. It will help improve your review score and attract more potential customers. Having testimonials on your landing pages can be a great way to show that you care about your customers. However, timing is everything. If you’re not able to follow up with your customers to get a testimonial when they are feeling positive about your product, you might want to consider using a marketing automation tool.
Benefits Of A Customer Feedback Loop
For a successful SaaS product, a customer feedback loop is a great strategy to keep your team focused on delivering a great customer experience. It allows them to gain a deeper understanding of how their customers feel about their experience.
It can also help you identify areas where you can improve the customer experience. They can also inform your team about how to approach creating new customer deliverables.
A customer feedback loop can also help improve the perception of your brand and help you understand how to approach every customer. It’s the easiest way to enhance the customer experience and can get easily implemented with automation.
Get in touch now for quality services and products for practical strategies for building your SaaS product or developing your team further. Using the well experienced and specialized experts, we shall provide you with nothing short of excellence!
