A Short Guide To Building Cloud-Based SaaS Applications
Software as a Service (SaaS) is an innovative delivery model that offers getting software on a subscription basis instead of buying a lifetime license for it. The statistics says that the SaaS industry is currently growing by 18% each year. And now, cloud-based SaaS apps are on the road to replace the on-premise apps.
Why? A cloud based SaaS is hosted in the cloud. Basically, this means that the software doesn’t need to be installed on your PC.
Cloud based SaaS applications have lots of significant advantages: they are cost-effective, reliable, update automatically, and have a high level of security. All you have to do is just sign in, and you can use them from any device and from any location where you can access the network.
These charcteristics are the reason why many startupers now wanting to create a cloud application and here is a brief step-by-step guide on how to build such an app for your business development.
Cloud Based SaaS Application Development in 5 Steps
In order to benefit from SaaS in cloud computing, you need to put a lot of time and effort into the development phase and strictly follow the plan. You can build your perfect plan on the base of our 5-step-guide:
Step 1. Earn the trust of your clients: Before you attempt to create a cloud application, it's necessary to make sure that your clients are ready to pay money for subscription every month/year. In order to do that, you need to assure them that the service you provide is reliable and consistent.
People don't tend to subscribe to dozens of services, but cloud-based apps benefit only from a broad audience. So make your clients think that your service is worth taking place on their subscription list.
The cloud software as a service should:
- Be transparent
- Offer obvious financial advantages to the users.
- Have large growing potential.
Step 2. Learn your competitors: This is a very important phase of the development process. Defining and learning your competitors will give you the possibility to find out who is going to need your service and what features your competitors have to offer to their clients. Thus, you will spot their weak sides and that, in its turn, will allow you to surpass them. Find and implement something that no other similar service can offer. This is a good way to give your customers a reason to get a subscription to your software.
Step 3. Choose tools for the development: When building a service based on cloud computing, you need to choose a reliable cloud provider to host your platform and provide your clients with straightforward accessibility. For instance, it can be the AWS (Amazon Web Services). It's a modestly-priced cloud service provider (but of course you can get an update as your user base grows) that offers many decent tools for SaaS developers.
There are a lot of frameworks that can be used to build cloud apps. For front-end development, you can use React, Angular,Vue.js, etc. For back-end, you can use Node.js, Laravel, etc. Everything depends on the background of your team, the functionality you are going to develop, and your scaling plans.
Step 4. Create pricing tiers: The demands of startups and large companies differ a lot, so the only way your subscription can be sold is by the differentiated tiers. There are no strict rules on how to create a pricing strategy. We will tell you about some of the most successful ones (although the best way to accomplish this stage of the process is to consult with marketing specialists.).
For example, you can offer a set of functions for free in order to appeal to a wider audience. Soon, some of the free-of-charge users will turn into paid users. This will also give you an advantage over many of your competitors. Then, you can develop three types of subscriptions: basic, advanced, and premium.
Step 5. Gather a team of skilled SaaS developers: When creating something from scratch, you obviously need a team of experienced developers. If you are not sure that the existing team will be able to handle the job, you may pay for consultations from successful SaaS developers, or hire them to work on your project. It’s also a good idea to resort to outsourcing if your team isn’t up for such a challenge.
Conclusion
The process of cloud based application development is not so easy. You have to earn a client base, know how to outperform your competitors, select the right tools for development, develop the pricing strategy, and gather the right team of Saas developers.
Kate Harrison is a technical writer for Clockwise-Software
You Might Also Read:
What Every PHP Developer Needs to Know About Cyber Security:
