The market which you penetrate with your SaaS company might be populated by firms that are better established and better-funded than yours. To stand out you have to determine how you fit into the overall picture, articulating what makes you different or unique. To simplify it for you, we have curated a detailed report to help you understand the best strategies for your SaaS Product launch. Read on!
Table of Contents
4-Step SaaS Product Launch Checklist
Taking a new product from the pre-launch phase all the way to launch day requires collaboration between all major stakeholders including the product and marketing teams. The following checklist can help you as a guide for your product marketing strategy so you can consider important factors during your product launch.
Be Aware of Your Competition
Entering a new market means you need an understanding of the competitive landscape unless you are launching something game-changing and disruptive. You could start small by asking current and prospective customers any product alternatives they have tried, and what they like in your competitor’s products. Just because another firm has more funds than you doesn’t mean their product is better or their business will be sustainable in the long run. However, you need to be aware of their presence to anticipate actions and reactions.
Always Deliver Value
Whenever you launch, your mind may gravitate towards profit. Resist the urge, and re-frame your mission in terms of creating value for customers. Start small with creating value for your first 10 customers, then 100, and move up like that. In order to create value
- Have a smooth onboarding process, sending step-by-step emails so users get the most out of your product.
- Take phone calls if your customers have issues, emailing back when they ask questions.
- Being transparent, notifying users of downtime, and alerting them to pricing changes.
Apologize publicly for mistakes made and inconveniences created.
Being responsive, helpful, and using a personal touch is how you could beat larger, better-funded, and more established competition.
You will require A Launch Strategy
Do not be conned into thinking that you can just ‘show up’ one day and be found. A lot of companies cohabit the same space with you, all competing aggressively for consumer attention. There’s a lot of work that goes into the behind-the-scenes of a successful launch, from conducting market research and building relationships with SaaS influencers to preparing press assets and refining your UI/UX.
Get Traction
Blog posts, PR, and offline events – there are quite a few customer acquisition channels for you to get traction and create a successful product launch. Here’s what you can use.
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation and content marketing – great sustainable ways of building a business and generating demand. The only problem is SEO takes time and in the early days the amount you need to invest vs the results is quite unbalanced.
PPC or Pay Per Click and display/social advertising can give you a good headstart but they might be expensive in the long run and tough to scale.
Posting on established sites might help you reach your target audience quite quickly. Sometimes, these sites promote posts on social media, giving the campaign a little extra momentum. Quora, for instance, is a great source of free and qualified leads. You could research questions that your product addresses, and add your content. You could also use it to see how users formulate problems that they’re solving in their own words, which in turn can help you when you are targeting your SEO efforts towards specific keywords.
Resources are few in early-stage SaaS startups. Think of the channels that work best instead of spreading yourself too thin using multiple channels. Experimenting and doing small tests to find out what works and what does, can help you succeed. Crucial metrics like your CAC and Lifetime Value or LTV can give you a clear picture of what problems your existing customers have and can help you find the right channels to reach new clients.
Setting Up Business Operations for your Startup
The very backbone of startup operations involves more than just keeping paperwork organized. Operations include finance, legal, compliance, HR, and general administration. Having proper processes in place from an early stage for these can make a big difference when you’re ready to start scaling your business. Here, we cover 3 key business operations.
1. Finance
2. Legal
3. Processes
Finance
For running a successful SaaS business, you should be able to recognize where your costs originate or how much capital is required to operate. Familiarise yourself with the fundamentals of MRR or monthly recurring revenue, and ARR or annual recurring revenue, cash flow, expenses, and gross margin. If you need to, outsource work from an accounting or tax perspective. Ensure your most experienced team member manages those numbers, reporting them transparently to the rest of the team. Management transparency is an indispensable factor in determining employee happiness. Create an Excel sheet with your main metrics, and go through it each month. A good operations manager on board might help your early-stage startup thrive.
Legal
The more complex your SaaS firm is, the more attention you have to pay to the legal aspects of your firm. Put a lot of effort into your Terms and Conditions (T&Cs), before you onboard paying customers. Have a basic framework in place, count your liabilities, and have a foundation so you don’t regret it later. If you offer a simple service, look at services or businesses that do something similar to yours, even if it is in a different industry or market. Find out what they highlight in their terms, and look out for things like confidentiality, invoicing, obligations, warranties, indemnification, limitations, etc, and use them as a framework. Same for your privacy policy.
If your service falls under regulatory aspects or you have customers in different nations, you might need to consult or hire part or full-time legal counsel. As the business grows and your customer base expands, you may need to engage counsel on a more consistent basis.
Processes
If you are considering implementing a process, define success criteria and then identify the sequence of events that would lead you there. Review and refine accordingly as you go along, according to how close or far you are from your objective. Accountability is important. Once you define success criteria, you must make someone accountable for the journey to take you there. If you don’t know who owns a customer’s complaints, your processes need strengthening. Make processes important from the first day. A small team without clear processes may seem fine but building processes from the beginning will provide a strong foundation for future growth. Business development starts at the center of your firm with your operations team.
Hiring For Your Startup
You may need to consider growing your team. You will have a fair bit to think about especially while you’re busy running your full-time firm. You have to find time to keep a lean startup, manage to hire time, and do normal work – all while onboarding top new talent.
Do you actually need to Grow the Team?
If you are experiencing scaling problems, it might seem tempting to hire someone new to solve them. Instead of doing that, take the time to perform a root cause analysis to find out where in the chain things fall behind. Try to find the right process to remove bottlenecks. Competition among early-stage firms for top talent is quite fierce. The only way to think about startup jobs and hiring is that anything less than the best will just not do. You could see it as a case of ‘hiring for a business problem’ instead of ‘hiring a certain person because someone else does because they’re great. Don’t commit to bringing someone on board before ensuring there are enough work hours for new hires.
Hiring Right is better than Hiring Fast
While this may seem counter-intuitive, if you reach a point where you need someone else because you’ve run out of time, you have to make more time dedicated to startup hiring. Don’t hire in a hurry and bring the wrong person on board. You might lose some of your best existing employees as a result. Successful startups that build a great company with a cohesive team are very intentional regarding the positions they hire for. They wish to ensure that the right position matches the company’s needs to the right individual job searching for that particular role. Even if you are a small team without a mission statement, your goals and what is important to you should be apparent. This knowledge should be your guiding principle when you hire people whose business and life values align with yours. These people should also communicate and work well together with the rest of the existing team.
How do Startups find the Right People?
For startups, recruitment agencies work out quite expensive, especially if they charge a fee, a percentage of the annual salary upfront. You could also post on FB or Twitter. LinkedIn ads might bring more targeted candidates but they can also be costly. For small teams, you are better off trying to find online spaces where the people you need ‘to hang out. You could use your network connections, and reach out to relevant contacts you have met at conferences or while participating in accelerated programs. Get help from these experts during the interview process as well because they are more likely to know what to look for in a candidate. If you can’t afford a full-time salary, temporary alternatives like contracting and working with external partners may be the solution. You could explore part-time hiring and job-sharing options as well.
When do you hire Marketers?
If you and your co-founders are very technical it is quite easy to get caught up in the product, more so at an early stage. As you get ready to go to market, you wish to have someone who is marketing-minded so you can express your value proposition clearly. You want someone who knows their way around the industry. Try to get someone who has empathy for the market you’re in, and has launched projects with little investments. If that is not possible, try to split your time between business roles. You can be the sales and marketing person on Monday and Tuesday, the product person on Wednesday and Thursday, and the finance person on Friday. If you have this kind of separation, you can focus on the main issues in each department instead of trying to do it all at once.
Simplify Employee Onboarding
Work on your onboarding process, making it repeatable so you don’t have to reinvent the entire procedure each time someone new joins. Get feedback from each hire, so you can smooth out the process before the next employee joins.
Try Being an Effective Leader
You may be a great developer. However, that doesn’t mean you will be a great team manager if and when your team grows in size. In the startup universe, getting things done fast doesn’t apply to the learning curve you and your team will go through as the company grows. Understand your individual strengths and weaknesses so you could figure out the easiest and most productive ways your team could work and grow together. As a founder or a staff member moving into management positions, you may later need guidance and training on how to build a proper high-performing team. Working many hours won’t result in more customers or revenue but will lead to burnout. Learn to look out for your team’s well-being, keep checking in on them and foster a healthy working environment. The best thing to do is to cultivate a growth mindset and look for ways of improvement.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, the above can be used to grow your SaaS startup. With this guide, we have tried to be comprehensive, but it is not the final document when it comes to launching and running your SaaS startup. You will have to look at various other aspects too. Read the following blogs, that can help you understand the requirements better.
