The future of Saas: Standardization Opportunities

Saas factories and interoperable ecosystems of micro-tools.

Author

Said Aitmbarek
January 15, 2024

The future of Saas: Standardization Opportunities

Hey there,

It’s Saïd from Stimpack,

Welcome to the 2nd edition of 99founder-tactics, I’m thrilled to share this new issue with you.

If you received this newsletter from a friend, and would to get it directly in your inbox, here’s the link. I would love to have you with us.

This second issue is about the Future of Saas and how standardizing it will help unlock multiple business opportunities. Making use of Saas factories and interoperable ecosystems of micro-tools is part of our future.

What you’ll learn:

  • 🔥Why is Saas so popular.

  • 🌐Why the Saas landscape faces multiple problems.

  • 🤖Reasons we need Saas Standardization for Micro-tools.

  • 🏗️What are Saas Factories: new concept.

  • ➡️ Direct Benefits of Saas Standardization & Factories.

  • ⚡Is Saas Standardization the future of businesses?

Reading this issue will take ~ 5 minutes.

Let’s dive in!

Why is Saas so popular?

Overview

  • Saas is a flourishing industry:

    • 📚Fact: $720 Billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 26%.

  • It’s also a distribution format:

    • aka, a way to consume, “as-a-service” + scalable⚡

  • Vertical: micro-saas, industry-specific or niche-specific

    • 🔎eg: SEMrush is a vertical Saas, industry = SEO.

    • 🔬Micro-tools are often vertical.

  • vs. Horizontal: industry-agnostic platforms, eg: Slack or Hubspot.

Popularity

  • Many success stories: Figma, Amplitude, Nomad List by Peter Levels.

  • For both: B2B & B2C, all industries, even hardware products📱

  • Because of this urban legend: “you just need a laptop and internet”.

  • Easy to exit: VC-friendly / B2B Saas.💵

  • Concept of micro-acquisitions: Acquire.com.

  • Micro-saas tools on the rise.

💡Note: Customers now prefer self-served over the human touch.🤔

📢 Saas apps are High-ROI products

  • High Monetization vs. moderate effort:

    • Scalable.

    • High ROI.💵

    • Frictionless & self-served.💳

    • Low investment vs. hardware industries.

  • “So many did make $1ARR, why not us”?😅

The Saas landscape faces multiple problems

🚩Problem 1: Tricky Interoperability & Integrations

  • Each company builds & maintains proprietary connectors (eg: Zapier).

  • Heterogeneous devices & systems: iPhone + IoT + laptop → responsiveness expected 💥

  • Decentralized & hybrid networks, fediverse (web3, web5)🕸️

  • Data privacy is tricky💣 → how to guarantee obfuscation?

  • 🛡Security issue: connecting systems → more security breaches.

Solution 1: build platform-specific plugins + your Saas.

“But I don’t want to write a plugin per platform for my Saas to be used”…😅

Solution 2: browser extensions for your Saas (see cool reddit thread)

🚩Problem 2: Apps Fragmentation

  • More and more Saas apps created and used

  • A need for Saas aggregators & directories:

    • PH for general tools.

    • DevHunt for developer tools.

    • Appsumo for LTDs & perks.

    • Problem: “is this online review really unbiased”😅?

      → One of the reasons why I’ve created MicroLaunch 

And opportunities: data enrichment with less data silos, more data scoping

[1] Tactics:

  • ⚡Quickly bootstrap your Saas using a boilerplate → MVP < 1 week

  • ⏱️Make it replicable:

  • 🔥Make your Saas interoperable by design:

    • Uncouple API from client apps + use REST.

  • 😎Register your Saas in directories, be discoverable.

  • 🤝Leverage partnerships with other Saas providers, share API access.

Reasons we need Saas Standardization for Micro-Tools

🙌Many Ways

  • The plugins approach:

    • 🚨Non-scalable, 1 plugin per platform

  • The browser extension approach:

    • System-specific, chrome or firefox only😮‍💨

  • The API approach:

    • 🚨Heterogeneous: each api has its own endpoints

    • Fixeable using Hateoas (Hypermedia As The Engine of Application State) concept.

  • Manually:

    • Use boilerplates: many of them are promoted on X.

    • Use Saas App builders: no-code platforms such as Bubble.io can help.

Saas Boilerplate Demo Landing Page

🏗New Concept: Saas factories

Basically:

  • Elements:

    • Boilerplates + Hosting providers/deployers.

    • AI assistance & tuning + operational interface.

  • Another definition: “a PaaS for Saas apps”

  • 💡 Stimpack.io is a Saas factory (more to come)🧑‍🏭

  • Vercel adds a touch of AI with their v0 project.

Benefits of Saas Factories:

  • Would help us scale portfolios to many small micro-saas tools/apps.

  • The idea: 1 idea → 1 MVP Saas app in < 48h .. it’s not “Black magic”🔮🪄

Saas is actually more than a MVP:🤷‍♀️

  • Landing page + Waitlist, forms + Blog + Marketing funnels.

  • + The Saas App:

    • You can compose an App using components, flows & routes.

[2] Tactics:

  • Start by writing plugins manually.🛠️

  • Write AI assistants + LLMs (eg: GPT Store) & automations.🛠️

  • ✨Ideally, use a Saas factory or provider.🛠️

  • Diversify your revenue streams + traffic sources & referers.💸

    • Multiple plans + assets/connectors + end-platforms.🎯

  • Re-use payment + authentication layers.💸

  • Drastically reduce operational costs by using Saas factories:

    • for all your brand’s digital assets💸💸💸

Direct Benefits of Saas Standardization & Factories

Some (not-so-bold) predictions

  • 👨🏻‍💻 Open-source will de-facto win:

    • Value = Data, not code.

  • 🕸️Interconnecting complex networks made possible:

    • Web2, Web3/5, Fediverse.

  • 🔥You’ll be able to create ecosystems of apps:

    • Micro-tools, with bridges + APIs.

  • 🤖AI assistance to create synergies (more to come).

🚨 Marketing consequence: a need to rethink the concepts of↓

  • Funnels, user acquisition, cross-channel mixes.

  • Product-led growth - interoperability may massively help.

  • Opportunity for synergies:

    → eg: “connecting tool 3 and tool 5” = free marketing + extra use cases tackled💎

[3] Tactics:

  • Opportunity: API monetization💸 + AI Assistants monetization💸

  • Invest early in open-source foundations (& community-building).💰

  • Explore Saas factory/providers solutions early.🌱

  • Implement funnels with PLG pre-integrated:

    • Feedback loop = plugins or APIs bringing traffic back to your domains🤯

So, is Saas Standardization the future of businesses?

Tl;dr: probably.

Saas standardization will eventually:

  • Make business operations easy.

  • Lower operational costs.

  • Use AI to improve low-maintenance + self-served traits.

  • Lower frictions, Saas will be shipped with:

    • Pre-integrated AI🤖

    • Pre-integrated Identity federation/Auth🆔

    • Pre-integrated Monetization.💳

    • Pre-integrated Customer Service.💬

It’ll eventually open the doors for Saas’ biggest successor:

  • Advanced Digital Twins (/AI assistants): both exposed + monetized.

But this is just a bold prediction.😅

Hope you enjoyed this week’s issue folks, let me know.❤️

We are still small, but looking for partners.

🙌I would love your feedback on this issue. If you like it, feel free to tell your friends and partners about it. I also aspire to engage with all of you on a personal level: feel free to send me DMs on social media.

I’m also involved in various projects, such as an early-stage product growth platform called Stimpack; as well as a MicroLaunch (micro tools launchpad).

That’s it for this time! Thanks again, see you soon and take care.🙏