Some best practices in building SaaS products from our own experiences.

1. © Copyright 2014 Valuehire, All Rights Reserved.
by Dhruv Gupta
BEST PRACTICES IN
BUILDING A SAAS PRODUCT

2.  Building any software product is challenging as one has
to consider everything from design to how customers will
be charged for using the product.
 The market for SaaS products is growing which means
competition is increasing (including that from traditional
desktop or client-server products which continue to exist
and sell).
 Customers can switch from one SaaS product to another
at any time, so innovation and ease of use are important
in order to retain customers.
INTRODUCTION
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3.  UI (user interface) of any product is key. Pick the styles,
templates, and colors that will define the look and feel.
 Define the screen resolution and choose which browser
versions you will support.
 Keep UX (user experience) and Usability in mind.
Interactions from screens and tabs have to be intuitive as
SaaS products need to be “self service”.
 Involve your customers during the design process.
BEST PRACTICE #1 – DESIGN
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4.  Keep the list of ideas from product team and customer
feedback separate.
 Prioritize above list in a simple tracking tool. Use
something like „Must Do‟, „Nice to Do‟, and „Can do
Later‟.
 Always discuss with your development team before
committing any feature to your customer, and get
estimates in advance.
 Do impact analysis before implementing any feature.
BEST PRACTICE #2 – FEATURES
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5.  Pick your programming languages – PHP, Ruby, Python,
or Java, and any relevant frameworks (e.g. Zend).
 Decide whether your product will have or interact with
APIs in future and promote code reuse. This can
influence technical design.
 Choose your cloud provider carefully – most companies
start off with Amazon AWS, Rackspace, or Azure.
 Set up development, staging, and production servers, and
SVN to manage the code.
BEST PRACTICE #3 – TECHNOLOGY
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6.  SaaS products are delivered using the cloud. Just
because the cloud is scalable, doesn‟t mean your
application is.
 Architect your application and cloud instances to cater to
customers from various geographies (if your market is
global).
 You can scale vertically (by adding more resources to
existing instances) or horizontally (by adding more
instances).
BEST PRACTICE #4 – SCALABILITY
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7.  Data should always be encrypted. Use SSL for login (at a
minimum).
 Pick trusted and known cloud providers and understand
what security measures are taken at their data centers.
 Enable server monitoring and logs for everything.
 User 3rd party security services like Cloudflare.
 Your SaaS application should have an auto logout
feature.
BEST PRACTICE #5 – SECURITY
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8.  Speed of access to your SaaS application is Internet
dependent, so pick your server location(s) wisely.
 Optimize your instance configurations as you get more
users.
 Test your application on different browsers and versions.
 Do regular performance and load testing. Look at crowd
sourced testing as an option.
BEST PRACTICE #6 – PERFORMANCE
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9.  Customers pay a subscription fee (usually monthly) and
hence invoicing needs to be built-in.
 Build a way to enable, disable, and monitor customer
accounts.
 There should be options for different plans (e.g. bronze,
silver, gold) – and ability to upgrade / downgrade them.
BEST PRACTICE #7 – BILLING
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10.  Follow Project Management principles to ensure that the
product you build is delivered on time, within budget, and
with quality – with the optimal use of resources.
 Having a Product Management mindset is also key, and
every team member should understand that building a
product is very different from working on projects.
 Always be Testing. If your customers find too many bugs
or issues, then there is a higher chance of them
cancelling or not renewing their subscriptions.
GENERAL BEST PRACTICES
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11.  Valuehire is an Enterprise SaaS product for recruitment
automation.
 We help Agency and Corporate recruiters do their work
better, resulting in faster hires.
www.valuehire.com
© Copyright 2014 Valuehire, All Rights Reserved.