Why simplicity is crucial for SaaS businesses (and how to keep it simple)

The opinions expressed by entrepreneurs contributors are their own.

The world of software is full of templates, frameworks, schematics, configurations, processes, workflows, paths, blueprints, and many more blueprints that make everyone's mouth water. business consultant. And yet the term I hear most often when it comes to strategy these days - a term so compelling, yet so seemingly beyond the reach of success for a growing business after the other - is simply "simplicity". Pun intended.

You see, simplicity itself is quite possibly THE underlying principle and North Star that guides every SaaS founder's visionary approach to starting a business in the first place - even more so than our old favorite term. circa 2002-2020: "disruption".

And it's easy to see why. After all, simplicity is the ideology that keeps drifting away. He's the perfect partner you always think about, trying to nurture and care for...until you walk through the door one day and he's gone. It ditched you (unless you ditched it first) when "real life" took over, or in this case - real customers, real feature requests, real product reviews, real unsubscribe issues or real cash flow issues. Suddenly, simplicity has become so easy to put aside. Until it's not anymore.

So why do we let simplicity slip away? Especially if it's the guiding principle that stokes our SaaS fire in the first place and is so intertwined with running an efficient, results-driven business? How can you nurture it, nurture it, and keep it as your North Star even as your business grows, changes, and evolves?

Related: Building Success: Insights from 7 Leading SaaS Companies

When you really dig into a SaaS business and its metrics, simplicity is more than just an intangible term or guiding principle. In fact, simplicity is and should always be very tangible: linked to real tactics, real results, and real metrics that can be correlated to effective and sustainable growth in all areas of your business.

Simplicity should have an impact:

How you innovate: As your business and your customer base grows, it can be beneficial to write every small feature request into your product roadmap (especially those coming from your largest customers and highest paid). But maintaining balance and prioritizing feedback is critical to your ability to keep innovating while maintaining the intuitive (dare I say "simple") product experience your users demand and the NPS scores your executives expect. .

How you market and sell: We see it all the time: As businesses evolve, products become more feature-rich and the problems you solve deepen or expand, so does yours. Ask any seasoned product marketer, and they'll tell you that one of their biggest day-to-day challenges is translating complex speeds and flows into simple business benefits that sales reps can easily express and prospects can. easily understand. Solutions that clearly define how and when they create value and provide an easy buying experience for prospects also allow you to accelerate sales cycles, increase average transaction size and reduce sales costs. customer acquisition (CAC).

How you retain and grow your customers: Perhaps nothing is more important in today's changing business climate than your ability to deliver value after the deal closes and, therefore, retain and develop your customers. As a rule, it starts at , where to erase a ...