1. Building a SaaS Company Isn’t What It Used To Be:
Your Competition Now Matters
Hiten Shah
hnshah@gmail.com

2. What are the truths in business?

3. Forget about your
competitors, just focus
on your customers.
Jack Ma
Chairman of Alibaba Group

4. I have been up against
tough competition all my
life. I wouldn't know how
to get along without it.
Walt Disney
Entrepreneur

5. Truth: There’s a lot of conflicting advice about customers and competition

6. 2016 is the 2nd best year for raising money in the last decade
bit.ly/2hi3ATo

7. So there’s now a lot of SaaS
bvp.com/cloud

8. It’s mobile and enterprisey!
bit.ly/1gEDdpB

9. Already, many SaaS tools (picks and shovels) exist for mobile
bit.ly/1gEDdpB

10. Sales has their own landscape(s)
bit.ly/1K5RwSe

11. Don’t forget the 3,874 marketing solutions out there
bit.ly/1pFsL6E

12. Truth: Everyone has competition in some form!

13. Truth: Aggressive competition is becoming a constant reality

14. Competitive advantage
is a company's ability to
perform in one or more
ways that competitors
cannot or will not match.
Philip Kotler
Author and Consultant

15. How do you compete?
Before you write any code.
When you’re just starting out.
(with a new business or a new feature)

16. TODO:
Take the time to do
thorough research up front
It’s faster to research than to write code. Upfront depth prevents you from building the wrong things.

17. Ask people what tools they have used

18. Ask people how they currently do things

19. Use Sean Ellis’ product/market fit survey on competitors
survey.io

20. “If you’re above 40% of the people saying
they’d be very disappointed, I tend to say
you’ve found product/market fit, and if
you’re less than that, you haven’t.
SEAN ELLIS

21. We found out that Google Analytics has product/market fit
AND SO MUCH MORE!

22. It started with a single question:
What’s wrong with Google Analytics site overlays?

23. Back in 2005 we put up an early access landing page

24. Google Analytics site overlay is only based on page level data

25. Crazy Egg tracked every single click on the page

26. I was a competitive advantage!

27. It started with a single question:
What’s wrong with Google Analytics funnels?

29. What we learned was wrong with Google Analytics funnels

30. • Built in one month from blank slate to release
• Used EC2, S3, Ruby and SQLite (yes, SQLite)
• Horribly slow and ugly code with bugs
• Took 7 servers for just 30 customers
The KISSmetrics MVP of 2009

31. We invented a 10x better API

32. We invented a live debugging tool for analytics events

33. We invented a better funnel report

34. The “ghetto” KISSmetrics MVP worked!!!
“I can already tell you that your
killer feature (for now, at least)
is retroactive funnel definition.
Brilliant.”

35. Your most unhappy
customers are your
greatest source of
learnings.
Bill Gates
Co-Founder of Microsoft

36. Your competitor’s most unhappy customers
are your greatest source of learnings.
💡

37. Funnel reports used to always be top to bottom

38. Funnel reports used to always be top to bottom

39. After we invented them at
KISSmetrics, many other tools
started to add left to right funnels

46. If it’s good for customers, it’ll
get imitated by competitors
and become the norm.
Inventing Things

47. AWS publicly launched EC2 and S3 in 2006

48. • We got Crazy Egg on S3 in 2006
• Costs were cut by 50% from switching to EC2
• Continuous improvement and new useful services
• Enables a faster pace of iteration
• Constant price reduction
Why I Love Amazon Web Services (AWS)

49. It’s now easier than ever
to create software.
And it’s gonna keep getting easier!

50. There are only two sources of
competitive advantage:
Ability to learn more about our
customers faster than the
competition.
Ability to turn that learning into
action faster than the
competition.
Jack Welch
Retired Business Executive

51. When do competitors show up in customer’s minds?

52. Ask your customers about competitors very directly

53. Find out how your product can be improved

54. Use strategic interviewing to learn why people switch
Jobs-to-be-done Timeline
First
thought
Event 1
Event 2
Purchase
Passive
Consideration
Active
Consideration
Decision
A timeline must be completed for each
interview. The goal is to use the interview
technique to identify key events that have
caused them to hire the product.

55. “
There’s a rise in all-in-one SaaS
software and SaaS platforms.

56. 2006 2011 2014
Three thriving examples of the All-In-One SaaS trend

57. All-In-One
Marketing
Software

58. HubSpot wants to manage all your inbound marketing

59. HubSpot wants to manage all your inbound marketing
• Created a website grader to generate leads
by identifying a website’s short comings.
• Started by targeting small businesses that
weren’t technically savvy.
• Expanded the offering by creating a new
suite of SaaS sales tools.

60. The single
platform for
every customer
interaction

61. Intercom wants to manage all customer communications

62. Intercom wants to manage all customer communications
• Built a single customer communications
workflow that serves many different jobs.
• Started by targeting startups who weren’t
yet hooked on existing tools.
• Iterated into a platform with multiple
products.

63. All-In-One
Analytics and
Feedback

64. Hotjar wants to provide every tool for website insights

65. Hotjar wants to provide every tool for website insights
• Put seven feedback and analytics tools
next to each other in a single interface.
• Started by offering a cheaper solution to
professionals who are already using
multiple tools.
• Their product roadmap is shared publicly.

66. SaaS product suites and platforms are making a comeback!
~$1.82B
market cap
$115.75M
funding
213,273
organizations

67. This is the one big idea for you to take action on, ASAP!
TODO:
Take the time to do
thorough research up front
It’s faster to research than to write code. Upfront depth prevents you from building the wrong things.

68. 🚀
Thank You!
Hiten Shah
hnshah@gmail.com
How can I help you?