In 2022, selling SaaS products business-to-business (B2B) is more lucrative than ever before, drawing many entrepreneurs and budding business founders to the space.
Currently, the global SaaS market is worth around $3 trillion, according to McKinsey. However, as one of the fastest growing markets in existence, this value is expected to more than triple by 2030.
Founderpath is helping thousands of B2B SaaS business founders across the world, providing the capital they need to launch their business. In this article, you can learn how to launch yours too.
What is B2B SaaS?
B2B SaaS is the practice of selling software-as-a-service (SaaS) products to other businesses.
These products can be accessed via an online platform or portal, usually in exchange for a subscription fee (monthly or annually).
Since the target customer of B2B SaaS products is other businesses, these products provide solutions to the problems experienced by SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) and large and enterprise-level organizations.
B2B SaaS vs B2C SaaS.
The principal difference between B2B and B2C SaaS is the target customer.
While B2B SaaS businesses sell SaaS products to other businesses, B2C (business-to-consumer) businesses sell software-as-a-service products directly to consumers.
In contrast to providing business-centric solutions, B2C SaaS products provide value directly to consumers, usually in the form of an entertainment or convenience service (like Uber, or Netflix).
4 Inspirational B2B SaaS Companies to Learn From.
B2B SaaS is a market with immense potential for new business founders. For any new venture, however, it’s important to study and learn from the businesses who’ve already succeeded in the sector.
With this in mind, here are four B2B SaaS companies that – thanks to stellar products and powerful marketing strategies – have flourished in their field.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a CRM platform that allows businesses to manage everything from marketing to operations, facilitating the creation of seamless customer journeys.
HubSpot’s marketing highlights its USPs. In other words, the HubSpot CRM’s simplicity of use and its ability to connect different departments together to improve the customer experience.
Workday
Workday is a human resource management app with a host of integration possibilities. From payroll to recruiting, anything to do with human capital can be managed within Workday.
Workday highlights the value of its product by emphasizing the importance of effectively managing people. This becomes more and more vital as a company grows, so Workday targets primarily medium-large to enterprise-level businesses.
Semrush
A SaaS solution helping businesses to enhance their online presence, Semrush provides a cloud-based hub for managing and augmenting businesses’ visibility online.
Semrush has become a leading online visibility platform thanks to its focus on data and metrics, which empower businesses to make data-driven decisions for their online marketing strategy.
Slack
Slack is a SaaS messaging app tailored to facilitate efficient teamwork within businesses and organizations.
In businesses of every size, the quality of digital communication is a common pain point. Slack has positioned themselves as the go-to solution for online collaboration, and has become a popular tool in the remote-working industry.
Why Go B2B for Your SaaS?
Huge market potential.
As we’ve already mentioned, the SaaS market is worth trillions and is rapidly growing, with a huge amount of potential for B2B SaaS businesses to disrupt and provide business solutions across the board.
As such, B2B SaaS has huge market potential, with a wealth of opportunity for new business founders.
Higher value sales.
Though B2C SaaS is typically sold in higher volume than B2B SaaS products, the latter tends to be sold for a significantly higher price.
This is because businesses have the budget to support the cost of a more expensive SaaS product – particularly one that solves valuable business problems.
This means that, even if the volume of B2B sales isn’t as high as B2C, the potential for revenue is often much greater.
Easier scaling.
B2B SaaS businesses are easier to scale compared to non-SaaS solutions.
For one, since a SaaS product comprises a singular platform or app, the cost of scaling up production is less expensive than with solutions involving hardware.
Not only this, but in contrast to downloadable software, any updates made to a B2B SaaS product can be made directly within the app. Every user instantly has access to the latest version of the product, including the best features and security updates.
How to Build a B2B SaaS Business.
1. Develop your idea.
You might have settled on B2B SaaS as the market you want to enter, but you may not know what product you’re going to offer businesses.
The foundation of any successful B2B SaaS business is a great product. But how do you come up with the idea?
First, you should look for a ‘problem’ within a business or industry that you want to solve. Then, you should check whether there are already SaaS products on the market that combat this issue.
If not, that’s great. If there is, you’ll need to determine if – and how – your product provides a better solution. Approach your future marketing strategy with this USP in mind.
Alternatively, if competition is already fierce, then it might be time to get back to the drawing board.
2. Write a business plan and roadmap for product development.
In order for your B2B SaaS business to be anything more than an idea, you need a plan.
At such an early stage, your business plan will focus principally on two things.
One, how you plan to make your B2B SaaS product profitable – backed by research into your target market, their problems and how much your solution is worth to them (guiding your price point).
You can use a business plan template like this to help you go into more detail.
Two, create a roadmap for the development of your product. After all, without your B2B SaaS product, there’s no business.
Your product roadmap should include every stage required to bring about the creation of the product – and the resources that this will take.
These documents will help you to gain any funding you might need from banks or investors, showing them that your SaaS business is more than just a pipe dream – it’s a feasible reality.
3. Hire your team.
Now that you have an idea – and a plan to bring your idea to life – you need to acquire the people who can help you build your B2B SaaS product.
When creating your product, it can be tempting to outsource its creation to different software engineers/developers – or even create the whole thing yourself if you have a background in software development.
However, this not only makes it difficult to create a seamless, high quality B2B SaaS product in the first place, but it creates significant hurdles to scaling later down the line.
On the other hand, hiring a dedicated software development team from the outset ensures that the people who work on – and grow – your B2B SaaS product know it inside and out, improving the efficiency of the product development process in the long term.
4. Secure the funds to make your vision a reality.
For start-ups, securing funding is vital. This will help you to develop your product, hire your team and implement your marketing strategy.
There are a couple of options you can explore, such as securing loans from a bank or pitching your business plan to investors.
When securing funding for your business’ growth, one of the best and most affordable options for bootstrapped SaaS founders is to use a service like Founderpath. The Founderpath platform allows B2B SaaS businesses’ subscriptions to be turned into instant capital to fund their growth.
5. Begin product development.
At this point, you should have a solid plan to create your product and the funds to see it through.
As quickly as possible, you should aim to produce an MVP (minimum viable product) with core features that provide the most value – a.k.a. the solution to a key problem – for your B2B customers.
Throughout development, you should ensure the process considers the privacy and security necessary to support your B2B SaaS product and protect your customers.
6. Outline your go-to-market strategy.
Now that you’re in the process of creating an incredible B2B SaaS product, it’s time to plan what comes next to maximize the success of your product once it’s out on the market.
This starts with identifying your target customers – the businesses most likely to need your SaaS solution.
With this in mind, figure out how to communicate the value you can provide them, including what you’ll say, where, when and how.
Then, make sure to fill in any unknowns, whether in distribution logistics, or with regards to your pricing plan. Essentially, anything that needs to be sorted before you introduce your B2B SaaS product to the world.
7. Stabilize.
Now that your product is on the market and being used by your B2B customers, you can focus on improving it.
This stabilization process might include adding more features or generally making improvements to the functionality of the product, and is an essential part of the B2B SaaS product lifecycle.
By constantly making improvements and listening to your users, you can maintain customer loyalty and increase satisfaction with your product.
Conclusion…
B2B SaaS is a lucrative, high-potential market with an abundance of opportunity for new start-ups.
To succeed, you need to have a stellar product idea that solves a specific business problem, and a detailed plan. This should include your vision for developing your product, making it profitable, and implementing your marketing strategy.
After that, the only thing left to do is to secure funding.
To quickly gain access to capital and launch your B2B SaaS business, check out Founderpath, the platform supporting bootstrapped SaaS businesses. With Founderpath, you can develop your B2B SaaS product, launch your marketing strategy and get your product to market as soon as possible.
