6 ms·

Founders on SaaS Platforms They Use

63 points by bgf419 6y ago

bgf419 6y ago
We're about to launch a SaaS platform into one of the worst economies of all time. But like every startup, we think we've found the holy grail of tech - something that every business will one day consider crucial to their success. To find out what SaaS platforms companies currently find central to their survival and which tech products are considered 'nice-to-have', we asked over 50 founders to tell us. Collectively, they mentioned more than 70 unique platforms, 6 shades of Google, and several software transitions to free tiers or cheaper alternatives.
- sky_rw 6y ago
  "one of the worse economies of all time". What economy are you referring to? Are you launching a SaaS in Venezuela?
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    UK about to enter worst recession for 300 years.
  - bgf419 6y ago
    US too... which is where I'm from: https://www.bea.gov/news/glance https://www.bea.gov/news/glance https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
elliekelly 6y ago
The point about choosing your bottlenecks carefully is so interesting. I actually love that Zoom automatically sets a time limit on free-tier calls. I might even pay for that feature. The vast majority of meetings don’t need to be a full hour but meetings always seem to go until someone has a hard stop. Of course that’s the exact opposite of what Zoom is trying to accomplish in cutting us off.
- mattbee 6y ago
  Yes! I always thought it was a weird joke that they give away the feature that makes you organise & focus your meetings, but charge for the one that lets people ramble on forever.
  - sqs 6y ago
    If someone makes an open-source, easy-to-use, self-hosted API integration with Zoom that lets me set time limits (with Google Calendar integration to determine length) on Zoom calls and (1) somehow posts a warning ~5min before the end and (2) terminates the call at the end, I would pay for it. (If someone reading this is seriously interested in hacking on this, get in touch with me by tagging me (@sqs) in a GitHub issue or something, and I can lay out more detailed specs.) I don't want to pay more than one person for it, so I'm not sure how to coordinate, but I would pay like $2000 USD.
    - bgroat 6y ago
      About to open a repo and tag you
virvar 6y ago
We’ve gone from using four or five different team/project management SaaS tools to using what’s coming with our already purchased office365 for business subscriptions. I know it’s anecdotal, and while it’s certainly great for us, it’s also quite a lot of money that isn’t entering the market because things like teams and planner are now standard products. I think the next few decades will be increasingly hard for the SaaS market, because big tech will simply implement the best ideas out there into their current subscriptions.
- arkitaip 6y ago
  It's not a popular opinion on HN but Microsoft really provides superior value with Office 365 [0]. Even though the quality or usability of their products aren't that great, it's good enough for most businesses, many which are too busy getting work done or just surviving rather than evaluating the latest collab/productivity darling that costs another 30-50 USD per employee. [0] Zoho is the other alternative but even their offerings tends to become expensive once you start using more than a single app.
  - legitster 6y ago
    I'll go further and argue that the quality of Office 365 is actually pretty good, all things considered. A lot of people have bad experience with Office because of all the legacy crap Office is tasked with dealing with, or all the truly bizarre use cases thrown at it.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jasonv 6y ago
      Current versions of O365 work really well, especially if you spend time at an organization still using pre-O365 versions of Office things. I pay for O365, and G Suite and Adobe CC (among others) at our small shop. I think G Suite could be the easiest to lose. And I wouldn't have thought I'd prefer MS over G for Office stuff a year or two ago.
fireattack 6y ago
The webpage doesn't render at all on both Chrome and Firefox: https://i.imgur.com/iclK6Dl.png https://i.imgur.com/iclK6Dl.png
- kelnos 6y ago
  Given that you're claiming that it doesn't render on two popular browsers, one of which I believe has the most market share of any browser, maybe your first thought should be that there's something wrong with your setup?
  - thomaslangston 6y ago
    It doesn't render on Chrome mobile.
  - fireattack 6y ago
    > maybe your first thought should be that there's something wrong with your setup It is, but I tested in new, clean profile and it's the same. No error in Network or Console either. It looks like to me the font this page uses ("rubik") are just showing as blank despite being a network resource. I'm no webdev so this is the best I can do. Edit: I think this font is just broken on Win 7: https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1137 https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1137, at least the version hosted on Adobe Fonts which this webpage is using.
    - bgf419 6y ago
      thanks for pointing this out... I'll have the devs/design team take a look. Ironically, we just switched from an expensive licensed font to the free Rubik, so I guess we get what we pay for
- ab_testing 6y ago
  I agree, Chrome on Windows 7, I cannot see a single word in that article or that website. May they should have done some basic testing before using that nice font.
legitster 6y ago
I've been in the marketing automation space for a while, and it's weird to me for people to describe it as differentiated. There are 50 million different companies in this space, and each one will tell you how beautiful and unique they are, but they are incredibly hard to tell or even care about the differences other than the flavor.
- bgf419 6y ago
  "50 million different companies" = differentiated If that many companies can survive in a single space, then that means there's value in granular, incremental differences. While I agree, most MarTech tries solving the same problem of 'make more money faster'... so does pretty much every SaaS platform or business in general. As far as feature differences, what would you consider a truly differentiated market? I think there's a spectrum, but most markets are on a continuum more than a discrete number line. Thoughts?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bgf419 6y ago
Same post on Medium for those of you using Windows 7: https://medium.com/@brett_64626/what-we-learned-from-50-founders-on-saas-platforms-they-still-use-ba93045bba86 https://medium.com/@brett_64626/what-we-learned-from-50-foun...

63 points by bgf419 6y ago

We're about to launch a SaaS platform into one of the worst economies of all time. But like every startup, we think we've found the holy grail of tech - something that every business will one day consider crucial to their success. To find out what SaaS platforms companies currently find central to their survival and which tech products are considered 'nice-to-have', we asked over 50 founders to tell us. Collectively, they mentioned more than 70 unique platforms, 6 shades of Google, and several software transitions to free tiers or cheaper alternatives.

sky_rw 6y ago
"one of the worse economies of all time". What economy are you referring to? Are you launching a SaaS in Venezuela?
- randomsearch 6y ago
  UK about to enter worst recession for 300 years.
- bgf419 6y ago
  US too... which is where I'm from: https://www.bea.gov/news/glance https://www.bea.gov/news/glance https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

elliekelly 6y ago

The point about choosing your bottlenecks carefully is so interesting. I actually love that Zoom automatically sets a time limit on free-tier calls. I might even pay for that feature. The vast majority of meetings don’t need to be a full hour but meetings always seem to go until someone has a hard stop. Of course that’s the exact opposite of what Zoom is trying to accomplish in cutting us off.

mattbee 6y ago
Yes! I always thought it was a weird joke that they give away the feature that makes you organise & focus your meetings, but charge for the one that lets people ramble on forever.
- sqs 6y ago
  If someone makes an open-source, easy-to-use, self-hosted API integration with Zoom that lets me set time limits (with Google Calendar integration to determine length) on Zoom calls and (1) somehow posts a warning ~5min before the end and (2) terminates the call at the end, I would pay for it. (If someone reading this is seriously interested in hacking on this, get in touch with me by tagging me (@sqs) in a GitHub issue or something, and I can lay out more detailed specs.) I don't want to pay more than one person for it, so I'm not sure how to coordinate, but I would pay like $2000 USD.
  - bgroat 6y ago
    About to open a repo and tag you

virvar 6y ago

We’ve gone from using four or five different team/project management SaaS tools to using what’s coming with our already purchased office365 for business subscriptions. I know it’s anecdotal, and while it’s certainly great for us, it’s also quite a lot of money that isn’t entering the market because things like teams and planner are now standard products. I think the next few decades will be increasingly hard for the SaaS market, because big tech will simply implement the best ideas out there into their current subscriptions.

arkitaip 6y ago
It's not a popular opinion on HN but Microsoft really provides superior value with Office 365 [0]. Even though the quality or usability of their products aren't that great, it's good enough for most businesses, many which are too busy getting work done or just surviving rather than evaluating the latest collab/productivity darling that costs another 30-50 USD per employee. [0] Zoho is the other alternative but even their offerings tends to become expensive once you start using more than a single app.
- legitster 6y ago
  I'll go further and argue that the quality of Office 365 is actually pretty good, all things considered. A lot of people have bad experience with Office because of all the legacy crap Office is tasked with dealing with, or all the truly bizarre use cases thrown at it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jasonv 6y ago
    Current versions of O365 work really well, especially if you spend time at an organization still using pre-O365 versions of Office things. I pay for O365, and G Suite and Adobe CC (among others) at our small shop. I think G Suite could be the easiest to lose. And I wouldn't have thought I'd prefer MS over G for Office stuff a year or two ago.

fireattack 6y ago

The webpage doesn't render at all on both Chrome and Firefox: https://i.imgur.com/iclK6Dl.png https://i.imgur.com/iclK6Dl.png

kelnos 6y ago
Given that you're claiming that it doesn't render on two popular browsers, one of which I believe has the most market share of any browser, maybe your first thought should be that there's something wrong with your setup?
- thomaslangston 6y ago
  It doesn't render on Chrome mobile.
- fireattack 6y ago
  > maybe your first thought should be that there's something wrong with your setup It is, but I tested in new, clean profile and it's the same. No error in Network or Console either. It looks like to me the font this page uses ("rubik") are just showing as blank despite being a network resource. I'm no webdev so this is the best I can do. Edit: I think this font is just broken on Win 7: https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1137 https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1137, at least the version hosted on Adobe Fonts which this webpage is using.
  - bgf419 6y ago
    thanks for pointing this out... I'll have the devs/design team take a look. Ironically, we just switched from an expensive licensed font to the free Rubik, so I guess we get what we pay for
ab_testing 6y ago
I agree, Chrome on Windows 7, I cannot see a single word in that article or that website. May they should have done some basic testing before using that nice font.

legitster 6y ago

I've been in the marketing automation space for a while, and it's weird to me for people to describe it as differentiated. There are 50 million different companies in this space, and each one will tell you how beautiful and unique they are, but they are incredibly hard to tell or even care about the differences other than the flavor.

bgf419 6y ago
"50 million different companies" = differentiated If that many companies can survive in a single space, then that means there's value in granular, incremental differences. While I agree, most MarTech tries solving the same problem of 'make more money faster'... so does pretty much every SaaS platform or business in general. As far as feature differences, what would you consider a truly differentiated market? I think there's a spectrum, but most markets are on a continuum more than a discrete number line. Thoughts?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bgf419 6y ago

Same post on Medium for those of you using Windows 7: https://medium.com/@brett_64626/what-we-learned-from-50-founders-on-saas-platforms-they-still-use-ba93045bba86 https://medium.com/@brett_64626/what-we-learned-from-50-foun...