Sara Faatz Of Progress On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App, SaaS or Software Business

Know Your User Persona. If you know your user, you will better understand their needs, their behaviors, how they consume information and so much more. By understanding your user, you know what pain your app is solving, and you can ensure you are exceeding their expectations with every release.

As part of our series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sara Faatz.

Sara Faatz leads the technology community relations team at Progress. With more than 20 years in the software development space, she has spent the majority of her career building community, producing events, forging partnerships, and creating content and marketing programs from the ground up. She is a mom, a wife, and a woman in tech who is a passionate advocate for equality and diversity.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

My career began around the same time that the internet became widely popular. I graduated from university as the technology became more widely used, and my current role didn’t even exist at the time. Of course, there were some unexpected twists on my journey, but it’s only natural that my path evolved alongside the technology itself.

I began in marketing and PR, originally for more consumer-facing industries like airlines and amusement parks, but early on in my career the internet took off. Soon after, I found myself at Alexander Ogilvy (AOPR), a PR firm focused on technology. While this wasn’t where I’d ever imagined myself being, the opportunities AOPR provided and the technology it introduced me to blossomed into a real love for the space.

After my time with AOPR I started with an ASP.NET startup hosting company where I worked closely with Microsoft and their partner ecosystem that heavily aided in early .NET adoption.

Ultimately, my love for both people and technology led me where I am today in technology community relations with Progress, a company that provides solutions and platforms to aid developers in creating secure software applications. In my current role, I get to meet new people and work to ensure they’re being heard when it comes to developing the same products Progress is offering them.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

Over the years I’ve learned a few lessons, including how to navigate a male-dominated field as a woman. I’ve come across situations where people assumed that, because of my gender, I couldn’t understand the technology I worked on or couldn’t even be in a technical role. I normally take these situations as an opportunity to politely respond in a way that clearly showcases my technical acumen. While this can be an uncomfortable situation, my goal is to be perceived as a technologist, rather than as a woman in technology — my gender doesn’t define my ability to succeed in a space.

The doubts that stem from being in this situation can be intense but recognizing that I am doing what I love with incredible people is a great reminder to keep pushing toward your goals.

So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Every career will have its ups and downs. Sometimes the difficulties are external factors beyond your control or sometimes it’s simply internal change. When things get difficult, I think it’s human nature to question whether the role and/or the organization are right for you. For me, when these doubts have crept into my mind, I am always drawn back by two things — my love for the work that I do and the people I am fortunate enough to work with on a daily basis. Both of these things feel like a gift, to be honest.

It has been said that our mistakes are our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

This story might not be the funniest, but it certainly is the most interesting with one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in my career.

Starting out with AOPR, technological innovation was moving at a rapid pace. My focus area at the time was networking, terabit routers and releasing the first all-optical networks. I loved it, and I knew I had found my passion. However, when we met with the client, I always held my myself back.

I was afraid to share my thoughts and be ‘wrong.’ At the time, that fear held me back and pressured me to store all my ideas for later, when I shared them with my manager, Bridget. One day, Bridget asked me why I didn’t just speak up in the meetings, and I told her, “What if I’m wrong?”

Bridget gave me a nugget a wisdom that I’ve carried with me since: If I speak up and I’m wrong, I’ll simply be wrong. But if I never let myself be heard, I’ll never be right, either. From then on, I stretched beyond my comfort zone and made sure my voice was heard during meetings. There were times I was wrong, but I was happy just to have made contributions, nonetheless.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

At Progress, we pride ourselves on creating high-quality products that improve developer productivity and experience. We can see the trends of development and applications becoming more and more complex, and for years we’ve been helping developers deliver distinctive digital experiences.

From User Interface (UI) components to software testing tools, reporting and Content Management Systems (CMS) we’ve been pushing the boundaries for developer innovation.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

First and foremost, don’t try to do it all yourself or everything all at once. Take the time to break down complex tasks and projects into phases. The bigger the project, the more difficult it is to execute. And prioritize. It is really easy to want to say “yes” to everything. If you understand how your work fits into the broader success of the organization, it is easier to figure out where to spend the majority of your time and what to say “no” to.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are so many people who have helped me along my journey, but one who truly sticks out is Bridget Cavanaugh, my boss and manager from my 20s. I mentioned her earlier in this interview with my story on confidence and not being afraid to speak out, but she truly made such an impact on my life’s trajectory. Her guidance and encouragement to come out of my shell helped me overcome my fears — something that would today be called ‘imposter syndrome.’ Without Bridget, I don’t know where I would be today.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. Can you share with our readers three of the main steps you’ve taken to build a developer community?

Community of any kind is about relationships. It’s about trust and mutual respect. So, to me, the most important thing you can do when building a developer community is to come into it in a genuine and authentic way. With that in mind, here are the three key steps to take:

1. Establish your why. Why do you want to build a developer community in the first place? What are your goals? If you are doing it as part of your job, it has to tie back to your business in some way. Perhaps you want to be perceived as a thought leader and trusted partner. Maybe you want honest feedback from your users or intended audience. Perhaps you simply want to generate more awareness for your company or product. No matter the reason, know why you are building community and ensure you share that with the business.
2. Be a contributing member of the community. Because community is about relationships, it’s not enough to set up the framework for the community. You need to be actively involved. Successful developer community programs have passionate people behind them who love the community members and thoroughly enjoy being part of something bigger than themselves. As with any relationship, building a developer community isn’t only about what you can get from the community — it’s about what you have to give as well. Whether it’s knowledge, product support, code contribution or any other activity, make sure you are an active participant.
3. Let the community flourish on its own. A strong developer community is the result of love and attention, but the best communities embrace that and are allowed to take on a life of their own. While you may have a desire to keep a tight leash on its purpose and focuses, if you let it lead the way, you will be blown away by what happens. And all the while, make sure you are an active contributing member of the community, and you are present in a genuine and authentic way.

Thank you. Here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful app or a SaaS? If you can,

There are so many things to consider or know when creating a successful app. If I could list only five, I would probably focus on use case, persona, user needs, technology stack that ensures your app isn’t outdated the day after you release it and inclusive design.

Know the Business Use Case. It may seem like common sense, however understanding why you are building the app in the first place will go a long way. Sometimes your business owner will not understand the limitations or capabilities of the technology. They might come to you with business requirements. By really digging into those, you will be able to make strategic recommendations about the best framework to build on, what functionality you will have to build from scratch vs what you can purchase and what technical direction will get you to market fastest while still ensuring your app is scalable for future growth and modifications.

Know Your User Persona. If you know your user, you will better understand their needs, their behaviors, how they consume information and so much more. By understanding your user, you know what pain your app is solving, and you can ensure you are exceeding their expectations with every release.

Know The User’s Needs. Having knowledge of the user’s needs will be critical to the success of the app. Maybe they are using the app out in a field and need to be able to swap between light and dark mode for better visibility. Perhaps they will be using the app while running a piece of machinery and need voice prompts. Running through all of the user use cases prior to scoping out the app will ensure an excellent experience for the user.

Know How to Best Future-Proof the App. “Future-proof” is a terribly buzzy phrase, but the reality of technology is that it evolves rapidly. While we can never guarantee that a project is 100% future-proof, we can do our best by building on scalable frameworks, like a modern .NET with a decoupled front end. This kind of architecture allows you to modernize your applications in the future without having to necessarily do a complete re-write.

Know How to Make an App Inclusive. And finally, you will want to know how to make your app inclusive. This could mean ensuring any form you have on your app has generous time restrictions so those who require more time to complete it have the opportunity to do so. Or building an app that can easily be localized so that people whose primary language is different than yours can use it. Make sure you are following accessibility best practices to ensure that people of all abilities are able to experience the app in the best possible way.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I love this question. I personally have been a big proponent of women in tech for most of my career. I have always said that one day I would like the conversation to move from “women in tech” to “people in tech.” To that end, if I were to start a movement, I would likely call is “tech is for everyone.” It might sound cliché, but we still have a lot of work to do in this area. I don’t think there is anything wrong with specialized communities that provide a safe space for marginalized people, however I do believe we can do better across the board by making all people who have an interest in technology feel comfortable and welcome.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can find me on X, previously Twitter, (https://twitter.com/sfaatz) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-faatz-b67213/).

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!