Every SAAS is capable of success if built right. If you're reading this, you're likely in the category of people constantly pushing out products and want to find out why those products are not successful and not generating profit. Don't worry—I share your pain. In this post, I will show you the correct way to build a product to ensure success.

Over the last decade as a software engineer, I've built multiple products, some of which, when I look back at them today, are worth millions of cedis/dollars. The question is, why are those products not out there in the hands of customers and generating millions of cedis/dollars in revenue? The answer to that question is, they were not built right.

Let's double back and try to understand the phrase ‘successful product’. What makes a product a successful one? In my subjective opinion, a successful product is one that people love to use and hits the pain points of a demographic. The number of users does not matter in this equation. The real variable here is “love”. Let's continue the conversation.

A successful product is one that people love to use and hits the pain points of a demographic.

Let's try to understand this better. A house is built in an orderly staged manner. One does not build a house from the roof down to the foundation. It just doesn't physically work that way. In the context of building products, one does not build first and then find customers. That is wrong in every universe. You identify your customers' needs by engaging with them and understanding their perspectives. If they find value in such a product, that's when you start building it.

Keep in mind you're building for people. And to know if these people will be interested in your product, you need to talk to them first. Get their views, understand their pain points, and listen to how they want their problems to be fixed. Heck, build what they want and dawg your idea!

Let's see the proper way to build a saas to ensure its success.

Validate the idea

As aforementioned, you need to talk to your potential customer

You might ask, how do I talk to them? Here's a hack:

Start a survey. On the survey list questions relevant to the product. But keep in mind that every question counts. Do not ask unnecessary questions as it might deter them from completing the survey. Keep it 1-2mins max, ideally of course. Humans hate filling out forms.
Post on your socials. Ask for feedback. Find ways and means to target your ideal audience and get them to say what they think about your solution.
Join groups. As Gary Vaynerchuck said, ‘Find where your target audience is gathered and be there’. Are they on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram? Find those places and engage with them.
Push out Ads. You do not have the product, not even an MVP yet. But start ads that talk about the product and observe the analytics. How many people clicked? How many people engaged with the ad? Use that as your metric to decide whether or not they want this product.

At the end of this process, if the general sentiment is negative, you are at liberty to dump the whole idea and move on to something else. If the sentiment is rather positive, go ahead and move to the next stage.

Build an MVP and iterate.

Here comes the fun part that gets my fellow hackers all fuzzy inside. Now you can build! Except you shouldn't build everything. Build a lean version of the idea with all the core features necessary for the application.

Get this MVP into the hands of your customers and keep updating the application per the feedback from your customers. Have them test it out and tell you what they think.

Conclusion

Building takes a lot of work, it is better to build safely than to just build to scratch your itch. Keep in mind that the product you build can be the next million-dollar product.

If you have a concept and require a dedicated team to bring it to fruition, my team at Vapourware Studios, with over a decade of combined expertise in software development and design, is fully equipped to execute your idea from inception to completion. Kindly click the “Hire me” button so we can engage in a detailed discussion about your vision. Kudos!