Ask HN: Starting Service on Top of B2B SaaS. Thoughts?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24351273

by this-ali • 6 years ago

1 1 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Say there's a niche B2B SaaS. Plans vary from $50-$200 per month.

Funnel is slow, but retention is high.

You realise there is a set of customers, who don't care about your product. They care about result. Your product is very well able to deliver.

Does it make sense start a service vertical, where instead of offering the product/platform, you deliver results to clients?

1. Hire a few people 2. Train them to use your SaaS 3. Charge customers 10x and deliver results weekly or monthly

thoughts?

rwdim• 6 years ago

Opportunity is opportunity, but you’re not building a viable long-term business and you can’t guarantee anything since you don’t own the underlying B2B SaaS.

The provider could pivot and remove the fundamental functionality you require and you’re instantly out of business.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to license/white-label the B2B SaaS, or joint-venture with them so they have some skin in the game, and you have some guarantee of continuity? If this is an option, make sure you get an option-to-manage or code/data escrow agreement to protect you in the event they go out of business.

The only other solution I see is to duplicate the functionality they offer over the next year and then jump to your own version, but many SaaS have a no-clone clause in their user agreements stating that you agree not to duplicate their systems.

If this is how you want to go, make sure you own the domain they are coming to so that when the time comes, you simply redirect your DNS and you’re up and running.

Just remember, until you own and run the entire system, you don’t have a business... the B2B SaaS has a side business they don’t know about.

Cheers

Ask HN: Starting Service on Top of B2B SaaS. Thoughts?

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