5 things I learned while working in the SaaS model

From the translator: co-founder of the Freckle Time Tracking service shares the 5 most significant things that he learned over 5 years of work on the service:

1. You are not a “technical company”, but a company that “makes customers better”

People don't pay you for the amazing nginx programming and configuration skills you can write blindfold. People pay you money because the product you sell saves them time, money, effort and nerves. So your job is to make customers better. Each decision made during the development of a product and business should be based on this idea.

2. Never announce feature launch dates

Just don’t announce such dates. Never. Believe me. People will constantly ask you when the "function X" will be ready. Here is a good answer to this question (if you plan to do it at all): “We are considering launching this function in one of the next versions. I can’t tell you the exact release date. ” Just be honest with your customers - you yourself don’t know when this function will be really ready and whether it will be at all.

3. Spend money on things that help you stay productive

This includes obvious things, such as a powerful laptop (often updated), a good chair and desk to work with, and less obvious things, such as software, which allows you to focus on developing the capabilities of your application, rather than setting up servers.

4. Do not work too much

Overwork is the first step to failure in business. You cannot show the best that you are capable of if you are constantly under stress. Do not check your emails in the evenings. If your team has only 1 or 2 people, do not provide round-the-clock support. This is normal. Customers will understand you. And if something happens to your program, it will not be the end of the world (if Time Tracking falls, it is annoying, but people can make notes on paper).

Dying from exhaustion is not your main goal. Your health, family and social life are more important than a five-minute support response time and a 100% uptime guarantee.
By the way, if you want to successfully follow this point, then it is useful to know where you are spending your time .

5. Don't be fooled

People are easily excited. And people are well on the hype ™ around new technologies, frameworks, programming languages, and deployment methods. People will tell you what to do and what to expect. What you need to prepare scaling for a million users, otherwise you are doomed. To generate HTML on the server is so old-fashioned. That node.js will cure cancer.

The point is to remain pragmatic, because your goal is business. Use proven (by you) and familiar technologies. “Litmus test”, according to which I test technologies: people involved in technology advancement are in a situation similar to you, that is, they base their own business on it (this quickly eliminates cool, but useless material). You need to optimize the product before delivery. That is, use less codes and deeper tests, and also focus on ensuring that everything is neat to ensure the long-term profitability of your own business.