Want to build a Startup in college ? Start with SaaS — Software as a Service

Published in

SV.CO

4 min readOct 9, 2017

— Siddharth Ram, Team SV.CO

Shashank ND, who Co-founded Practo with Abhinav Lal wanted a second opinion for an operation his father was about to undertake. He couldn’t track the required doctor which led him to set up a platform where patients could search for their doctors, gather information about them and book appointments. What started in final year of engineering at National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal is now one of the biggest healthcare startups in India.

How did Shashank build a startup in college without a funding, a huge team and from a remote area? Answer is in this article

What is SaaS ?

SaaS is an acronym for Software as a Service. Great products like Dropbox, Gmail, Slack are SaaS products.

Software as a service (or SaaS) is a way of building applications over the Internet — as a service. Previously softwares were downloaded and used on your computers but with advent of internet, now you can simply access it via the Internet, resolving issues of the nexus between software and hardware.

SaaS applications are sometimes also referred as Web-based software, on-demand software, or hosted software. Whatever the name, The applications are run on servers of the host company and not on your device.

3 things needed to build a SaaS startup

Famous SaaS product we all use. Here’s why

Example: Gmail

We all use Gmail right ?

We didn’t buy a hardware to use Gmail
We don’t need to buy newer versions of Gmail every time
Gmail updates automatically
Can be used from any hardware which has internet and a browser.

5 Advantages if you build a SaaS product in college

Build in rupees and sell in dollars across the globe: SaaS products have applications across the globe. Since its on the internet, anyone who has the specific problem can use your product. For example, a group study app can be used by students across the globe.
Build Product, Engineering and Design skillsets at once: SaaS products have unique advantage of building skills faster. These skills can be used to showcase for Jobs or higher education. Looks fancy on your resume too.
No external dependencies to kickstart sales : If you were to build an Uber, you need cabs right. The initial success of the product really depends on external factors in products like Uber whereas in SaaS, you can build a product and get users to use it and customers to pay for it.

If you were to do an Uber in college , you are dependent on cabs to get users.
But
If you were to build a Clinic appointment system, you are not dependent on anyone to sell itto a clinic. Just Code . Build and Sell.

4. Initial funding is a myth : Students live in a myth that startups need funding to start off it’s because they are driven by PR which is highlighted with funding news and not with journey or milestone news.

The only cost you incur while building a SaaS startup are Cloud or Server space. Read 12 awesome perks SV.CO provides to its student startups. We minimise all the efforts for student teams by providing them with perks which makes it easy for students to focus on just building something cool.

5. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain

“Even if you fail to build a startup while in college, it doesn’t matter because your primary mission was to be a student and you didn’t fail at that. You still have the advantage of using their skills while pursuing higher studies.”– Paul Graham

How did Shashank build Practo in college without a funding, a huge team and from a remote area?

Practo website design in the intial days

a) Appointment booking system for nearby clinics over long queues

b) Online medical records for patients over traditional files

c) Platform to list doctors near college.

The Initial idea doesn’t depend on any partnership with hospital which is tough for students to crack. Once you have users, hospitals will come to you.

Practo effectively reduced a lot of time for people to Discover doctors, handle medical records on the cloud and book appointments to avoid queues which unlocks wealth from people.