5 things to consider before starting your own SaaS

Before we started with SaaS, I had success helping lots of early-stage startups navigate pre-PMF territory from our LinkedIn agency times (we ran a LinkedIn outbound agency doing nothing but cold outreach for paying clients). We thought that there must be a way to find high-intent LinkedIn leads more efficiently, with less work required. So we focused on pursuing that idea, which led us to building our product. 

Throughout my journey, I’ve learned a few things that I think anyone who plans to start their own SaaS should know. 

1. Businesses only buy for a handful of reasons

Bit of an obvious thing, but this is something I actually struggled with at first. During my agency times, I actually tried to launch a startup where I built a daily reporting tool on an email basis, all because I liked the idea. In the end, nobody was interested or willing to pay for it. 

So before you start grinding and writing code, validate your idea first. What do you know about your ICP? Are they already paying for your type of solution? Does your product help generate revenue for them?

Ideally, your product should do at least one of these:

• Make or save them money.

• Fit easily into their existing workflow.

• Give them better visibility through data.

Creating more revenue should be the number 1 reason why people buy your product. Businesses are much happier spending money to grow revenue than to reduce expenses. If your value proposition doesn’t offer this, maybe you should rethink your idea.

2. Don't build for an industry you barely understand

Domain expertise is a competitive advantage. My experience at the LinkedIn agency really helped me identify what my clients want and how I can best provide solutions. The tool was originally just a solution to my own problem, which worked so well that I decided to launch it.

So before you build, make sure you have a thorough understanding about how the industry works. What the biggest pain points are. How buyers make decisions. Which workflows are broken. If you don't have that experience, either start attending webinars or get a co-founder who does.

3. Competitor research is free real estate

How well your competitors are doing proves there’s demand. There’s so much you can learn from them, such as:

• Who they're selling to

• Their marketing strategy

• Common complaints

• What features the ICP is looking for

List at least 3-4 main competitors for your product and go over their landing page, API, what workflow integrations they have, package inclusions, pricing, and so on. Then think if you can offer the same features or add more value to them.

4. Build around existing workflows

Businesses rarely want another standalone tool. They want something that fits into the tools they're already using. Before you build anything, you should have a deep understanding of these things:

• How your ICP works today.

• Which tools they already use.

• Where friction exists.

• Which manual steps waste time.

Businesses invest in solutions that help them make money, but if it requires them to create a new workflow just to accommodate your product, they might as well just settle with something else. Make it easy for them to add your tool to their existing workflow. 

5. Find customers already looking for change

One of the biggest mistakes B2B founders make is trying to sell to everyone. Their product then becomes too broad, their messaging becomes generic, and nobody feels like it's built specifically for them. Instead, look for customers who are already trying to improve their workflow. They are much easier to convert into paying customers. 

We built our tool to improve the process of getting warm leads on LinkedIn for our agency clients. The good thing is we can also use the same tool to help us find leads for our startup company as well. We searched our competitors, influencers in the industry, and found people who are already discussing the issues we can solve. 

Customers with intent will also help you learn more about your product. They’re much more involved, and trust me, they will be very honest about where you’re lacking. 

One thing we did with our startup was doing 1-1 calls with our customers to hear their problems and ideas. They’ve given us good feedback about how good our tool is solving their problem, and in what ways we can improve their experience. 

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PS: If you need high-intent leads interested in what you have to offer, have a look at IbexAI.