Build Teams

There are a few different ways you can go about building your SaaS development team. Different methods of building your team depend on your resources, skills, and what kind of system you are building.

1. Build part or the whole thing yourself

If you are building a tool, not a platform, have plenty of time and not much money, and have development skills before you start, then this may be a good solution for you. The only time you would really want to do this though is during the MVP build process. After you have validation on the system, it is usually a good idea to lead the company and hire people to do this job for you.

2. Find an agency or development team to do the project

This is a good solution for building a more complex MVP and starting the process of marketing. Also, if you are building a fairly simple tool, then keeping with an agency for the long-term may be a good solution. But if you are building a SaaS platform or are doing continuous integration, you should consider hiring your own team after you have validation and are cash flowing. Some agencies also specialize in certain technologies, and this can be a great place to start if you are looking for specialists.

3. Hire one or more freelancers and manage them

This is where I see people failing the most. If you are not a professional project manager, don’t have a fair amount of development experience, or don’t understand the technologies behind what you are building then don’t just hire people to build this system, hire a team as explained above.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to do this and be successful, but what happens is that you need multiple types of people on a SaaS development team, and when you hire just one or two people they don’t have all the skills needed and often don’t know what people they do need or how to utilize them. I have seen people hire ‘a guy’ so many times and end up losing all their money.

4. Build a team of full time people

Finally, if you are building a big system or are well funded, and have product validation, you’re going to want to hire out a full-time team. The more funding you have, the more best-in-class employees you’re probably going to want or need, and be able to afford. If this is you, and you’re reading this book and you don’t already know almost everything I’m telling you, I highly recommend you go find a CTO to take care of this part for you.