Deliver your B2B SaaS App via WASM to Fast-Track Enterprise Sales

VCs want their SaaS to do lots of "Stuff"

I was recently chatting with a VC about my early-stage SaaS play, which I'd crudely describe as an "insight engine" for enterprise executives.

The VC feigned mild interest before explaining his reluctance: "We like to invest in services that 'do more stuff'... Service Now and Jira... they manage workflows and store documents... they don't just focus on insight."

Those of us who have worked in large enterprises might question whether those tools do, in fact, provide any insight. They are great for the occasional alert or escalation but I've rarely seen a SaaS tool give an executive aid on a mission-critical decision.

Ultimately, however, the VC is right. Other than the "once in a generation" GenAI tools, most SaaS plays place a heavy focus on activity management where the more "stuff" you manage, the better. This partially explains why SaaS categories like Digital Twins and Process Mining often struggle to dislodge incumbents. It's hard to do more stuff than SAP or Microsoft.

I find this insight somewhat bewildering. I've personally seen my SaaS-based insight tool identify solutions worth over $50M for a client, in a matter of hours. Its findings require almost no spend or effort for implementation as the issues identified arose out of small, unknown constraints buried deep in the org. From a pure, objective, ROI perspective, insight-only SaaS can create real value!

So Why doesn't "Insight" Sell?

Answer: It does, just not in SaaS.

Look, for instance, at the management consulting industry, currently worth over $300B per year. Sure, some consultants come in to manage politics or augment the workforce. Usually, however, McKinsey is there to find value the client wouldn't otherwise find. I've seen companies spend $60M per year on top-shelf consultants and at least some of that represents an appetite for insights.

Given that, and the fact that many insight-based SaaS tools can generate over 100x ROI, you'd think clients would clamour for these solutions. When it comes to the largest enterprises, they don't. In my experience, the best most founders can get is an executive who will use your SaaS as an adjuct to a consulting engagement.

After seeing this patttern several times with my own startup, I think I have figured out the large enterprise hesitation around SaaS startups!

Successful SaaS Tools are Shaped by the Enterprise Approval Process

I know B2B entrepreneurs talk a lot about the long "sales cycle" required of enterprise SaaS. I, myself, have worked on both sides, including around enterprise procurement and approvals processes. In my mind, it's more useful to look more broadly at the full "Approval Cycle" for SaaS. To land a soft close, for example, you mainly have to persuade the BU owner and the CIO. To get final approval, however, you need the CFO, the CISO, the lead architect, someone from cyber, someone from legal... the list can go quite long.

Getting approval from such a disparate group of decision-makers necessarily limits the "shape" of SaaS likely to get through. In other words, the approval process creates a process of natural selection and, just like with evolution, the resulting animal is highly shaped by its environment. For example, if the tool "does too little," (like merely providing insight), it's not worth the time of all these important approvers. So it's no coincidence that enterprises select for SaaS that supports a lot of visible activity that all the executives can see and appreciate.

Consulting approvals, in contrast, work completely differently. A top-tier consultant will already be in the vendor management system (so there is no vendor approval required) and most senior executives don't need anyone's financial approval to kick off an engagement. In fact, I've seen consultants bring their own SaaS into the org and, because the consultants are already there, the enterprise will basically "grandfather in" the SaaS.

It is just a truth of B2B enterprise sales that different spend categories have different norms and requirements when it comes to sales and onboarding.

Only Traditional SaaS Plays Can Survive IT Scrutiny

The reason enterprises have such large approval processes for SaaS is because of the very real concerns over their data and tech real estate. What would be the point of spending so much on enterprise-grade cyber protections only to turn around and place your data with somebody else? Unless you're Microsoft or Google, you're going to have an impossible time convincing the enterprise CISO you can protect their data from hackers. The same goes for on-premise, client installations which run the risk of exposing employees to malware or, even worse, dodgy implementation support!

I've seen dozens of high-potential data startups die from this exact issue. They get the BU client excited about their SaaS product only to have IT bring everyone back to reality (where "reality" means "Microsoft"). To store data off-premise requires a global reputation. To deliver an on-premise solution requires compliance with some unwieldy cyber standard that is not in any way fit for a small startup (think ISO 27001).

A Hot, New Technology Shows us Another Way (hint: it's not AI)

My hypothesis is that Web Assembly (WASM) creates new opportunities in B2B SaaS. Released as a new protocol in 2017, WASM allows users to run full binaries of SaaS applications, in the browser, with high performance, as if they installed a client. You already see WASM being used with companies like Anthropic and Figma.

Functionally, WASM lets a startup serve their entire app as easily as they do their home page. For the customer, this means all data is stored in the browser so there is no reliance on the startup's cyber capabilities (or lack thereof). What's more, because runtime is done wholly in-browser, there is no need to get IT involved to manage configuration or to run checks on installations.

In my case, I can direct an executive to my tool and have them using it in less than 30 seconds, as WASM is rarely blocked by today's enterprises. The executive can start getting value instantly, with an offering shaped precisely to their needs, as opposed to being in the shape required to pass the gauntlet of enterprise approvals.

When it comes to payment, WASM also allows for approaches outside of a traditional SaaS contract (with all the attendant alarm bells that triggers). Maybe the client can sign up for a website subscription. Maybe they book it as a consulting effort. Maybe they add it to their corporate credit card for which they have discretion below $5,000.

Overall, WASM allows many startups to completely side-step the long approval and sales cycles. From a technical perspective, adopting WASM is just a matter of finding the relevant library or runtime for your language. As a Python developer I work through Pyodide but some languages even support WASM natively.

WASM Makes New Forms of SaaS Viable

I, obviously, can't know the impact WASM will have and I'm sure there is lots more to learn.

For example, there are "gotchas" with WASM as your company moves beyond MVP. Because the data stays on premise, the user will have to back up their own data by downloading files or keeping data in the browser-based storage (while avoiding any hard resets for their browser). WASM also makes it difficult to "break out" of the browser without IT's help, so it won't work as well for services that require peer-to-peer interaction via the network. Most of these limitations are easy to overcome with a bit of help from IT but that sends us right back to the long approval cycle we're trying to avoid.

On the other hand, this subtle shift in distribution model allows for direct sales to the end-user. That user can be from any level or division of the company as opposed to being filtered by senior decision-makers. That user can also start using the product immediately, offering the Founder faster feedback, more relevant to the value proposition. All of this would take place within a context of reduced spend for the startup who no longer has to spend so much to meet all the documentation and non-functional requirements of the broader sales & onboarding cycle.

When all of these factors are weighed together, I think WASM is opening the door for entirely new categories of SaaS that look very different from those my VC friend expects.