With the digital transition, individuals and professionals are increasingly using software for everyday tasks: scheduling, task management, writing, etc. Last year’s growth was around 4%. It’s no wonder, every year we see more and more software addressing problems in different industries.
SaaS software is a business model that no longer has to prove itself. If the design and development of software can easily take several months (even several years) and generate significant development and marketing costs, the software remains a scalable business model and, once developed, relatively easy to market and distribute.
SaaS software is a project that requires a certain start-up investment. There is the whole design phase, but also the testing phases, bug fixing, server maintenance, hiring a team, protecting intellectual property, trademark registration, subscription to other software that will facilitate development, you must first succeed in your business plan. It is during the development of the business plan that you will be able to analyze all the strategic aspects of your SaaS software. A business plan can also help convince an investor that your project is viable.
The Points Not to Miss in Your SaaS Software Business Plan
What are the success factors of SaaS software?
You need to be clear about why SaaS software is successful. Among these factors, there is the user experience, the distribution media, the absence of bugs, the price of this software, the possibility of carrying out transactions in a secure and fast universe, a coherent graphic universe and charter, multiple features etc. Read these success factors in your SaaS software business plan and specify which ones you will focus on first.
Who is the competing software? Where are their weaknesses?
Your SaaS software business plan should present the findings of your competitive research. No need to detail everything: you don’t have to know absolutely everything about the competition. Limit yourself to the essentials: who are the main competitors? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? You need to understand how they managed to convince their market. What points do they highlight in their software? Can you suggest something better? What are the points on which they could do better? Does it create frustration in the market? If so, could you solve this with your SaaS software? What competitive advantages for your SaaS software?
Also read: Top 10 SaaS Development Trends You Should Follow
What distribution strategy for SaaS software?
Just because a SaaS software is developed, you’ve spent months on it, you’ve spent millions… doesn’t mean that everyone is going to jump on it. It must now be marketed and distributed. You need to make it accessible to your target market segment, and that includes multiple platforms and media. What will your distribution strategy be? Are you going to market it directly? Are you going to hire salespeople? Are you going to use a SaaS software marketplace? How much is this going to cost you? Are there certain channels that would be more profitable than others? You must explain all this in the business plan of your SaaS software.
Be concrete on the technical side
Far too many founders want to build the software of the century without even knowing how to write even a single line of code. This is not necessarily a prohibitive problem. However, if this is the case, you must explain in your business plan that you have at least one co-founder or a person in the management team who masters the “technical language” of the software and who will be able to monitor saas development services very closely. If your revenue generation is entirely dependent on software that some outside development agency is going to develop and you don’t understand its architecture, then that’s a bad sign in your business plan.
How to estimate the development costs of your software?
As for a startup business plan or a marketplace business plan for example, in your financial forecast, you will have to justify the amount you want to borrow or raise from an investor. This amount will, for the most part, be justified by the development and design costs of your software. If you have not yet started the development of your software at the time of writing your business plan, we advise you to obtain several quotes from several development teams. Always take the high range of these quotes so as not to have any unpleasant surprises. On the road to software development, there are always unforeseen events, which cost money.
