7 SaaS Startup Software Development Challenges. Why Startups Fail
Those who want to start building a software product often find themselves troubled by questions and doubts. Some doubts and questions may seem challenging but if you find someone experienced to answer them for you and advise you on what to do, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to find a solution to all of your problems, doubts, and questions. In this article, you’ll not only learn about 7 SaaS Startup Application Development challenges that you need to know about but also find answers on how to overcome these challenges. In order to make it easier for you to navigate your own SaaS Startup Application Development, we’ve asked some of the most successful businessmen to tell us about their experiences and recommendations.
The challenges that you’ll face while developing your own SaaS Startup Application will depend on your approach.
The first question you’ll have to answer will be whether to develop your product by yourself and hire your own developers or hire a team of developers or an outsourcing company to develop the product for you. This question takes us to the first challenge:
Challenge 1
Stop being a Superhero. Convince yourself that others can also do tasks well. Although as a CEO you can be good at designing, programming, marketing, etc. — do not try to do everything. Focus on building the vision and business aspects of the project and delegate the rest to specialists. Preferably those who have experience in building MVP projects and help you build your SaaS Startup quickly and efficiently.
According to both developers and startup owners, it is advisable to use the expertise of more experienced programmers in the implementation of software projects. Why?
One of the reasons is limited time. As was mentioned in one of our other articles, titled In-house vs. Outsourcing Software Development Teams for a Startup, hiring an in-house developer, co-working with one or a few developers, or doing everything on your own will leave you with many additional responsibilities that you won’t have if you outsource.
The second reason for which you might consider hiring a team of programmers/outsourcing company is their expertise. When you’re building your first software product, chances are that you won’t even realize what mistakes you’re making. Hiring a team of experienced programmers means aiding yourself with professional help and advice. They’ll steer you away from making expensive mistakes and doing things that don’t scale well.
As was already mentioned, hiring an experienced team to help you develop your product is very important. Once you decide whether you want to hire an in-house development team or outsource, you’ll need to focus on either finding the right professionals for your company to hire (which may be tricky because you need to learn how to hire developers first) or an experienced outsourcing software development company to work with. It’s entirely up to you, but our clients all agree that hiring an experienced team will help you avoid making mistakes and losing money.
Once you have that settled, there will be many other choices to make and problems to resolve. If you jump into developing your SaaS Startup application not knowing what challenges await you on your journey, you may make a lot of unnecessary mistakes.
In order to make an informed decision, one has to both know the threats and benefits of going it alone and be able to recognize what is best for the business. According to our clients, some benefits of doing things on your own are remaining close to the product (which is also seen as a threat by some), being able to alter your code, and making decisions on your own and without consulting anyone, which makes the whole process easier and faster. It is thought that working alone enables you to twist your ideas and change things as soon as you come up with them. It gives you certain freedom that you won’t have if you outsource. However, this freedom is what ultimately can cause the downfall of your project.
It is notable that according to experienced entrepreneurs, there are more threats than benefits to running the project by yourself. Remaining close to the product and having the freedom that we’ve just talked about is often seen as being just as dangerous as it is beneficial, and it could be even more dangerous. Depending on your own skill set and performance definitely takes a lot of courage and belief in yourself and for some, it might be the best course of action. Although, when you have no other input and no one to advise you, it’s easier to make costly errors and mistakes. Often, when we create something, we feel strongly about it, and we don’t see the flaws of our own creations, which can lead to disaster if there’s no one to point them out to us. As was already stated, listening to the expertise of other professionals often plays a huge role in achieving success.
We know now some of the greatest threats and benefits that you’d have to be aware of if you wanted to run your project on your own or with the help of a programmer. Running a project by yourself is a challenge in itself, which makes knowing these threats even more crucial to your success. It’s easy to lose money on bad decisions and it’s not always our own fault, but having an experienced team to advise you and steer you away from additional costs and expensive errors can save you from failing. And if you fail anyway?
Challenge 2
Don’t build stuff that nobody wants
Often, the mistake that is being made is that we want to have everything done all at once. We come up with many different features even before the project starts and then during the development process we find even more solutions based on testing and customers’ needs. Adjusting your product to meet customers’ needs is a good thing, however, it’s worth remembering that not everything has to be done in that first stage of development. It is instead recommended to focus on developing enough features to publish the app and have some customers invest in it first. That way you won’t drain your wallet and it will also allow you to see, yet again, what is needed the most, what works for your customers, and what doesn’t. Introducing updates to your application after its release is believed to be more profitable than trying to perfect it during its development phase because while you’re working on the updates, your application is already making money. It allows your business to thrive.
It is advisable to not lose your focus on what’s important in your app and to not let yourself be distracted by constant changes and new additions before its initial release. However, this doesn’t mean that you should release an unfinished or badly made app that’s full of errors. It’s true that you don’t have to add each and every feature to your app before its release and that you don’t have to strive for perfection. It’s also true that errors and mistakes are unavoidable. However, you can and you should make sure that your app is well tested and that there are little to no bugs before releasing it. You don’t want users getting discouraged or disappointed with what you’re giving them. If you release an app that doesn’t meet their needs, that is so buggy it’s hard or impossible to use, you’ll lose customers.
We all know that testing your product internally is important. But what some people do not realize is that letting your potential customers test your product is just as crucial. If you test how your customers respond to your product, what they like and what they don’t like about it, you’ll know if it is going to sell or not. And if the answer is negative, you’ll still have some time to fix the issues, introduce changes to the design, etc., and make sure to fulfill your customers’ needs. Chances are you’ll still have room for improvement after your application is out, but if you do your research before and check what it is that your potential customers want, you’ll avoid bigger mistakes and won’t lose so many users at the very beginning.
Challenge 3
Not to be an idealist who must have a very complex product stuffed with tons of features before he shows his product to the world
As was already mentioned, introducing a lot of changes and features to your product before its release is not advisable. It may, however, be tempting, especially if you’re an idealist who wants to create a perfect product that will fulfill all the needs of your customers. You don’t need your product to scale to a million users right after its release — what you do need, however, is a product that is released and usable. A product that will get you your first customers and allow you to introduce new features. It is crucial to always have your MVP in mind. Your MVP needs to be simple and has to be deployed as quickly as possible. You need your product to do its basic job, to solve a problem for the client, and get them to use the app — that’s the most important thing. The rest can wait.
There’s this belief in the industry that some features are “must-haves”, features that make your product whole, make it usable and important. Then there are features that are “nice-to-have” which would make your app even better, add to its brilliance, but that is not needed at that first stage. It’s crucial to distinguish between these two categories, to decide which features belong in which category, and then follow it up by adding only the “must-have” features before launch. After you launch your product, you’ll have plenty of time to introduce changes and new ideas to the app. In the meantime, the app will already be earning money.
Not only that, but it will also show you if your product or service sells. You’ll have a real insight into what is perceived as great by your clients and what needs to be upgraded or introduced to make the app more successful.
So, focus on the most important features, on the way you want the app to look, on what you want it to be, and once it’s released, work on the details and keep adding new features. Not only will it help you gain profit early on but also it will show your customers that you’re constantly working on bringing them something better and more tuned in to their needs.
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Challenge 4
Make sure you have a good software development process and make sure it is well run by your people
Managing people is not as easy as it seems. Mostly because it requires you to trust your team. First, as was already said, you have to make sure that you’ve chosen the right people to work with, then you have to make sure that you have a good software development process and that your devs know what they are doing or should be doing all of the time. It’s important to have a good process and the space to write and review tasks and the work of your team. The challenge here is that you have to be specific enough for the work to go smoothly, but not overspecify. Overspecifying, i.e. micromanaging, not only takes a lot of time but also kills the creativity of your devs. Like we’ve said before, it’s not possible to manage and work on everything and get into each and every task at the same time. Micromanaging can hurt your product and discourage your team of devs. You hired those people for a reason, so use their expertise and let them make their own decisions.
How else can you make sure that your software development process is feasible? By making sure that you actually understand the process. There are many things that one needs to remember when it comes to the development process. So what are they exactly?
- Validation of the business idea
- Market, competitors, and customer research
- UX/UI design
- Development
- Testing
- Debugging
- Product launch
- Post-launch maintenance
Challenge 5
Reducing costs and time of the development process to a minimum by picking the proper tech stack
One thing that can make it simpler for you to achieve success is reducing the costs and time of the development process to a minimum. Whether you work on your own, with the help of a programmer, with an in-house team of developers or with an outsourced one, you need to always watch your expenditures and do everything in your power to reduce costs and time of the development process as much as possible. You don’t want to end up halfway through your project with little to no money.
As was already said, if you put your energy, time, and money into developing countless features, you might get distracted and lose a lot of resources in the process. It’s understandable that we all want to create the best possible solutions, write the most efficient code and sell the best version of our app from the very beginning. However, as was stated above, you’ll have more money if you build something fast and work on making it even better after releasing it. If you’re still in the phase of your development in which you’re thinking about which framework to use and you’re thinking about choosing a Python backend Framework for your startup, you may find answers in one of our other articles.
We all love perfection but losing all of your funding on correcting and adding features before the app’s release is not a desirable scenario.
There are certain actions that you can take to ensure that this doesn’t happen:
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Challenge 6
Staying motivated, open-minded, and focused on your agenda
It may sound cheesy, but if you want to succeed you need to work on your mindset. Overcoming all the difficulties, staying focused and motivated, as well as persistent, can be more challenging than it sounds. But it is a must if you want your project to succeed. Losing motivation or failing to go through with your ideas can bury your product just as quickly as anything else we’ve talked about so far. If you don’t believe in your own project, nobody else is going to believe in it and buy it from you. Then again, if you do believe that your product can solve a certain problem or make people’s lives easier and you do have a solid plan, funding, and everything else we’ve mentioned in this article, you have to stay persistent and be open-minded when it comes to making necessary changes.
Wonder what some successful business owners had to say about all this? Here are their thoughts:
Challenge 7
Achieving rapid growth and not losing users after launch
Loss of users is a problem that many startups face, and we’re not talking about the people who leave shortly after you’ve released your app because it’s buggy or not user-friendly at all. We’re talking about the problem of users who leave after a longer time, those who were with you for months, or a year even. We’re talking about the situation where your product is doing great, it’s a huge success, and suddenly, seemingly with no reason, people start to leave. Why does that happen?
According to our UX Designer, there are two reasons for that. One is connected to user behavior and the other to product development. If you want to keep your users and even achieve growth long after your app has been released, you need to remember two things. One: you have to keep your users interested in your product and developing a cool project is usually not enough to do that. Two: make sure that your product is relevant; keep it up to date. “It’s not enough to launch a product and only engage in technical support.”
Do you want to know more? Learn 7 UX tips on how to reduce customer churn and achieve rapid growth from the article written by Maria Krupskaya.
Hopefully, these 7 SaaS Startup Application Development Challenges helped you answer some questions and cleared some things up for you. If you still have doubts and feel the need to seek further assistance, no matter what stage your application is currently at, we, at Profil Software, can offer the help of an experienced software development team ready to provide you with all of the answers you need.
