SaaS: Why are people so attracted to it? (mini rant)

Money and scalability. I personally hate it

tl;dr - easy to hit revenues faster and get paying clients, like all IT services companies. Saas is 70-80% like service industry. Similar common demand products, same clients (what an Infosys does), except it packages each 'client project' to market better and let client get the solution bit faster. Demand for services at low cost is huge worldwide. Tech salaries are lowest in the world, and hence easy to build solutions in India and sell in US, Europe with sales offices there like how all the WITCH are the biggest tech listed companies in India. Most saas startups you see will be in CRM, marketing, sales, ITSM, Data Ops, Infra segments and there will always be some segment of client company (maturity, size, industry wise and all) who have unmet needs. Founders have to work finindg them, shape their offering and start making money soon. Unlike consumer products which are super hard to monetize. P.S. Saas companies are still service companies as the last letter says. They will still have solutions engineering fleet, deployed to onboaed their 'Saas product' to each client.

Answer is simple: It’s easier to build. There is an established playbook (written by david sacks) which means VCs have relatively more certainty, margins are higher, lean team can get high early revenue, accepted multiples are bigger, and overall it is a clearer path to money and riches. Just look at snowflake’s revenue multiple.

Hey man i am trying to build something for India. Softwares that have been built by global companies from their India employees and for which they charge millions of dollars. If you are also interested in building something for India, then let's connect. I will flag that there is no money yet, just a guarantee that it will solve real problems.

Share insights, if you get to know something. I feel the same

Because they’re just ponzi schemes to save taxes and move money. Most of these saas startups have common VCs or advisors or co-founders share common ex-employers. Here’s an example: A saas startup cofounded by an ex Adobe employee will have adobe as one of their clients. Now, there exists 10 similar saas startups out there and they all have Adobe as their client. Why does Adobe need 10 different saas products while one does the job? Because of multiple products and departments. All these deals are done by internal employees who are friends with cofounders. They’re just ripping off the big tech and generating recurring revenue.

To each their own. There are people building businesses which do not add any value at all as per your framework of analysis. That's fine, it's a choice. They aren't disillusioned, they believe a gap exists and they want to go after it. And yes, only creating any kind of value, will make you life changing money as a founder when you exit. So everyone, including all the people that you would consider doing great work has capitalistic motivations. (Please exclude the exits which are secondaries where founders make money, I am talking real large outcomes). To add, SaaS is probably the most liquid private company shares. Look at the history of acquisitions that have taken place. One of the best sectors in that context. Plus, these are cash rich businesses which do not need a lot of capital to start and run. There are several problems which have not gotten any attention and that's fine. Nothing wrong with how people spend their time. And as Rustin Cohle once said, "Your dime, boss."

Well, sab sahi hi hai, kya dikkat hai. Similar rant-banter tone mein we can list down a bunch of clown ass consumer products too XD. Real business problems at scale is also an equally foundational timeline - First with local-softwares that started digital transformation (Excel, Office, Adobe suite), followed by cloud infrastructure revolution (AWS), and then Payments (Stripe/PayU/Razorpay).

Because VC money is attracted to it

I don't know what's your issue with people following saas model. Alteast moat of the saas startups are profitable unlike other startup.

Some people find b2c problems exciting , some people find b2b problems exciting. It's their choice. And as you get bit experienced, you realise that there are enough industry specific problems that need to be solved and you find it interesting. Again, building a SaaS is equally hard as any other startup. The percentage of successful to the total startups in SaaS space is also abysmally low may not be b2c levels but still low . All the best.

MONEY 💰

Its all about the paying customers who are willing to pay for the SaaS

idk easy money maybe. from whatever little I've seen, Indian saas companies have a business sales/customer success team in order of 10x numbers than tech team. They've to make the app once then it's just selling repeatedly.

First of all you think it's dull for entrepreneur they might be interested to make buck. C'mon you work at Cisco so you can't even complain😂😂

I’ve been in B2B/SaaS for 15+ years now, and the new found SaaS love among Indian founders is only because of VC preferences. The good ones will survive and the ones riding the wave will crash out soon. Also, B2B SaaS is a beast if done at scale, and has some really good challenges to solve.

I’m going to use imma to prove what?

Wasn’t this always the case? 🫠

I work as a product designer for a SaaS start-up in Dubai. My hunt was specifically for remote rolls and I kind of saw a pattern where SaaS teams are small, strategic and business oriented. I personally am okay with the pay but the work I do is pretty boring. But I also freelance on the side so I guess I'm fine. Long story short it's about the money 🤑

There are plenty of ambitious saas startups solving real problems being built from India. It's damn hard to build good products but there is nothing inherently wrong with a saas business model.