How to get a SaaS built when your not a programmer?
Hi,
I have a B2B service idea that I would like to develop for my industry (small and niche). I have a reasonable technical understanding, but I have no coding background, but I have been starting to learn a bit from some tutorials.
I'm stuck at a point now of how to find and hire a development company to build the solution for me (web based app). Once built, it would need to be maintained and if my MVP is successful then expand to add more services and functionality to it.
So if you were in my shoes - how would you start and what would you do?
If your a programmer - what would you want from me to be able to bid on and build the project?
(edit: I do have personal funds to help launch the SaaS. I've realized that it will take too long for me to learn how to code it all myself, and then of course code it). :)
Any tips, ideas or advice would be great. As well if anyone feels they could help mentor me on this journey, or know of someone who could mentor me that would be great?
Thank you!
You can have your product build in four ways:
What all these 4 paths have in common is:
Defining your product idea means:
This stuff needs to happen and can be done in a couple of days. You can also decide on the outcome of this definition if there IS a market, validate your idea online and/or with people you think are the market. Make this the step to consider if your product is viable and actually delivers value for people.
Bootstrapping devs like Pieter Levels showed me that you can best validate your idea by talking to people and building a landing page with a "buy" button so you can check if people actually want to pay for it.
Although people with enough capital often used to hire devs (2), the trend for the last few years has been moving to learning it yourself (1), partnering (3) and the last year towards non-coding solutions (4).
The way I see it (as a dev myself), is that if you have a good vision on your product and it IS VALIDATED that starting out by partnering is wiser than outsourcing. Outsourcing needs you to have a strong skill set on defining the solution and steering a team. If you're new in the game partnering (3) with a good technical person that you can closely interact with (and that can help you by mirroring ideas) is far better.
Also, you often need to develop some technical insight since after delivering the product you need to be able to check issues, describe problem locations etc to have them fixed.
Using non-coding tools (4) is a good way to go for it, too. It will be the most flexible and quickest way to put a product on the web.
This approach will help you to set up a validatable product and actually charge people for it. Thus you can verify "for real" if it fixes the problem and if people want to pay for it.
You can iterate your idea vs feedback using clicks instead of 3-week sprints and deployments, often by altering stuff in-browser and clicking a publish button.
ie: For my day job, I recently built a product using Excel, which was being filled using Google Forms and WebMerge and connected using Zapier. People answer questions and professionals value by receiving a filled out analysis report by email. No code involved (only some excel functions).
Do note: you probably will need to code a better version of your product after you validated it and get money for it. Non-coding solutions tend to be less scalable and can be less performing.
To conclude, these are example paths that work:
1: research your product, validate it, learn to code, built the MVP
2: research your product, validate and built it using non-coding tools, earn income, let new version being coded by partner/devs
Hope this helps
That is awesome Edwin. Thank you for taking the time to write that out!
I'm going to be focusing on defining what I want, workflows & wireframes. Then I'll work with some potential clients on those, and start to talk with some potential developers.
You're welcome 👊🏻.
Sounds like a good plan. Don't forget to think about your financial model, too. It is important. ie: if you're going to set a monthly/yearly price at least you now know you need to validate pricing suggestions (often start with 200% of what is in your mind) by checking if people will pay that.
As indicated: letting people click a buy button with that pricing on it is more indicative than asking people if they would pay that much for it (tricking them into thinking they're "actually paying for it" is a mental bridge further than checking if they "would pay" for it.)
Wishing you all the best with your product(s) 🙌🏻
Yes I've been looking at other services and thinking about pricing. For most clients it would be monthly, but some would be annual.
I'm curious about your buy now example.. if you don't have a product at all.. is there not a downside to having a site or presentation that looks like they can use this today.. to only discover that it is months away? Or am I missing something in the "Buy Now" concept?
Thanks!
I hear ya. I've discussed/read/listened to/seen this advice multiple times. It feels like you're "lying" or perhaps even performing fraud by asking this before the product is ready.
The truth is when people are clicking that buy this button several times you have a signal that they actually want to take out their wallet/credit cards for your product. This will (hopefully) trigger you to focus your time on the development for this product (since it will bring in cash that you can use to develop it further).
That will lead to a win-win situation. If you show them a "thanks for showing interest, we're working hard to make this product a reality" message, they will understand.
Invite them to leave their email for in-person contacting and involving them into the finalizing of the product and you will lose some people but the actual "fans" will stick around which is worth multiple times the initial payment you would receive.
If I was in your shoes, I would
Figure out a way to gauge demand without having to build the real product
eg
a. can I create screenshots/mock ups and show it to potential customers and see if they'd prepay (potentially w/ a steep discount )for an alpha
b. can I get a list of customers to sign a Letter of Intent where they would purchase your software when it's ready with a list of features?
c. can I get a list of 100s or 1000s of emails to a waiting list where you'd notify them when the software is available?
Check out this video How To Build a Software Company With No Money | Dan Martell - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlouEWnEFVQ
As a programmer, I would want you to either
All the best Tony!
Thanks Johnny! Some great points there. I should have said in my original post that I do have funds to invest to hire a company to help build the SaaS. I've been doing some coding tutorials to help expand my understanding of how modern Web Apps are built, and in the process learning that coding it all myself would take too long :)
I am starting to do more market research, but from my experience in the industry I've got a fairly good idea of need and entry market size.
Thanks again for you ideas, I'll certainly watch the video.
I've started to look into a few apps to create some wireframe in as well.. wow there are a bunch out there. :)
I didn't mean that "you couldn't afford to pay someone". Even if you have money to invest, I'd try to figure out a way to go as far as possible before you spend your investment in building. This could be hard to understand (I struggle with it too) because it's tough to imagine how you'd test your idea without having something fully implemented. Fight the urge!
I can tell you that you are most nimble right now because there's no software. Tweaking your idea is just changing your mockups and it could be done in days/hours and re-validate with your prospective customers.
Here are several things you might want to know before your build:
Hope it helps :)
Plus, you implicitly said it but just to make it clear, any change of the concept / features after its implemented has exponential cost.
Due to the Change itself and chain reactions and dependencies into other features. I still underestimate this.
Great advice Johnny!
Is your budget realistic? Ballpark how much are we talking?
That is part of what I am trying to determine. What is the cost/timeline of getting a product up and running and then advancing it. At this point I'm not sure how to say what by budget is publicly. but enough to fund development for a few months IMO.
Did you look at SaaS in a box? https://bullettrain.co
Have you used it yourself on any projects? @gator70
We recently did a SaaS from scratch, but found this later. I suppose we could have saved time by using this as a foundation.
Wow that is pretty cool.. a lot of work put into that!
I am also a non-technical person building a B2B product for my niche industry. If you see yourself building a few such apps over the next few years I'd definitely suggest learning to code. Might be too late to do so for your current project, but it will really empower you going forward. Just completing CS50 and working on a couple hobby projects will get you in a position to build something real
Thanks.. I've been doing some Rails tutorials and a tiny bit of Javascript tutorials. It is my intention to keep learning and working on coding as I go through this. Interesting thought on the CS50 idea. Years ago I had started to watch one online I think from Harvard or something. Did you do a CS50 course yourself? Which one?
I did CS50 on edx. CS50 is harvard's intro to comp sci course, and yale has adopted the same course. the edx version is basically the same as the harvard course but without office hours, TAs etc. same lectures and problem sets, and theres an amazing amount of support resources and active community to help if you get stuck
its an amazing course, i found the content really fascinating and exciting and the professor is a great teacher and communicator. the problem sets are tough but very satisfying and you really feel like you are internalizing important concepts.
the first part of the course is in C, then the rest is python and javascript. you build several simple web apps as projects. they recently added "sub courses" focused on web dev, game dev, and i think mobile dev w react native
before cs50 i tried some tutorials but didnt get into it. cs50's style just really appealed to me and motivated me to learn. obviously different things may work better for you but i tell all my friends who want to explore programming to at least watch the first lecture and try the problem set
Wow.. Thank you everyone.. I've got to read through these, but there is some great advice and pointers in here. I'll do some followup posts later today, but I wanted to make sure I thanks all of you for your contributions so far!
Try out NoCode.tech - It's a site full of curated resources on how to build a software app without learning how to code. Build yourself an MVP and use the proceeds from your first customers to hire a dev team who can take it to the next level
I've looked at a couple of those, and I think for what I want it would quickly become easier to code it vs no-code it.
Try bubble.is
I would search for a code bootcamp that has good reviews on entrepreneurship and tech startups based curriculums, invest some of my savings on it and give it 100%, when you finish (usually 3 months or less) you'll be able to build your MVP fast . By yourself.
OP has a startup idea in a B2B domain. Data security & robustness of system becomes of paramount importance in such a case.
Developing a SaaS application single-handedly with a good solid architecture along with creating a website for marketing is a difficult thing to do for a newbie. I don't think it can be done in 3 months.
SaaS is so competitive these days (especially in B2B) that the founder has to really put a huge amount of efforts in marketing.
I wouldn't suggest learning to code as the focus should be on building a business & not just building a product.
I'm not talking about a full featured application but an MVP. There a re tons of great hackers that are now succesful that recommend that you should not outsource your startup/code to other people and if you want to do that you should really focus on having skills that you can show to a possible cofounder (marketing, design,etc) see https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/914895942276481024?lang=en
or my favorite on the topic: https://medium.com/buffer-posts/my-advice-to-non-technical-founders-25767263eb16
TL:DR: Hack an MVP yourself, keep meeting technical people and keep building something good, when you have something good. People will join eventually
Thanks guys, I intend to keep working on my coding skills, however my background in sales and marketing does make me better suited to working on other parts of the business than the coding I think.
From the posts here I think that writing out workflows and making wireframes will be my best focus for the next bit.
Hi Tony,
There are many non-programmer entrepreneurs who have started their SaaS journey with the help of outsourcing their programming work.
Noah Kagan from Sumo.com is one of the prime examples of it.
I'm a big fan of the following quote:
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt
Since you have some funds available, I'd suggest you develop a prototype or an MVP with the help of some outsourcing agency.
If you have limited funds, I would suggest you outsource to some Asian companies with prior experience of building SaaS application MVP.
I am running a small dev-shop with 30 developers in India. We have recently started a new pricing structure model for indie-hackers where you can get your MVP developed in around $299 only.
If you want to know more details, you can check it out on http://xpditesolutions.com/hire-development-teams.html.
You can chat with me for refining & positioning your idea too. I have got 12+ years of experience in building SaaS and e-commerce store.
Thanks Milan... I'll look into that some more.
There are two aspects here which are based on my background of the startup space. There is a short term outlook and there is a long term outlook.
Long Term Outlook - You want to own the code. This can be by hiring someone on your team to manage and maintain the code but always the outsourced dev shop is for short term only.
Short Term Outlook - You can outsource the work to a dev shop but you want tight controls on scope, technology stack used, build vs buy decisions, documentation needed and finally maintenance and enhancement costs.
Keeping that in mind if I put a mentor hat on this is what I would need from you
These are some of the initial things which come to mind. Happy to chat more and provide detailed inputs after getting atleast a high level business view of your idea.
Thank you Manish, I agree on owning the code 100%. I am starting to flesh out the MVP ideas and will put together a group of potential customers to go over workflow and wireframes with.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean by TCO from a dev shop - but I'm guessing you mean What a dev shop will charge to build and deliver the MVP. If so that is what I am trying to find out how to get a handle on.
Thanks Tony. Yes that part is something its always hard to finalize. Do you want to get on a call. It might be easier to explain and the pros and cons for that. Shoot me an email with your number and a good time to talk
Will do I'll drop you a message.
you still looking? i might be willing to build and maintain it for a price and or perhaps a stake?
Hey @CanuckTD,
I am around in the Vancouver area and if you would like to grab coffee or something and discuss more about it, let me know.
I'm a developer and have been looking to work on a SaaS app for quite a while.
Can you add a email or twitter to your profile and I'll reach out to you.
Just added my email!
U have to get a programmer... thats it really. Get him on board as a cofounder, try to convince him somehow. Outsourcing will be really expensive and wont take u too far in the long run.
Commenting to bookmark this page.
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Thanks! I have started to write up the concepts and workflow ideas, as well as some basic wireframe layouts. I think with those two it will help people get a better understanding of what I want. Your text example is a good one!