A vivid way to describe the SaaS development process
Imagine a group of kids waiting for Halloween candy. You’re a master candy-maker, and you already have a pretty good recipe.
Project-driven SaaS development All the kids start shouting: “I want candy!” One wants hard candy, another wants soft candy, another wants something coated with sugar crystals.
So you keep tweaking your recipe to match each kid’s request, and you run as fast as you can to deliver the candies one by one.
Sometimes the custom candy you made still isn’t exactly what that kid wanted, but at least everyone gets something close enough.
Meanwhile, you’re exhausted from running around, and your core recipe never really improves.
So you think: This won’t work. We can’t just grab a handful of candy and toss it out every time someone yells.
That leads to the next model:
Product-driven SaaS development You now carry a basket of candy made from your core recipe.
You polish the outer shell or add small variations so it fits the general needs of most kids.
And you stop running. The kids need to wait in line and hand the candy out one by one, making sure everyone receives a carefully crafted piece of candy.
These candies are delicious — beautiful and nutritious.
The first few kids love them. They’re happy.
You’re happy too, and you keep improving your recipe as you hand candy out steadily.
But after a while, some kids at the back get impatient and run off to other candy shops.
You think: Uh-oh, that won’t do. We need to give them something quickly first, and then deliver the really good candy later.
And suddenly, you’re back to running around making different candies for every child again.
Which approach works better? If your candy recipe is amazing, all the kids prefer your candy, and there are no other candy shops around, the product-driven model works great — kids will line up and wait for you.
But when there are tons of kids, or plenty of other candy shops, or your recipe has drifted far from what kids actually like, the project-driven model becomes more suitable.
A candy shop uses different strategies at different stages of its growth.
This is the essence of the product–project pendulum in SaaS.
Read the full article here: https://medium.com/ao-technologies/a-vivid-way-to-describe-the-saas-development-process-2ebfcb761aba