#SaaS
6 articles
6 Books on SaaS and Building a Business (Launch, Architecture, Sales, and Customers)
A reading list of 6 books for engineers who want to understand SaaS and new businesses: launching a SaaS, multi-tenant architecture, how sales and customer success work, and understanding customers with Lean Startup and Jobs Theory. Each entry links to its full review.
Building Multi-Tenant SaaS Architecture - Principles, Best Practices, AWS Architecture Patterns
A review of Building Multi-Tenant SaaS Architecture. It comprehensively explains the essentials specific to SaaS: the two-plane structure of control plane and application plane, tenant authentication and routing, data partitioning, and noisy-neighbor mitigation. Not tied to a particular domain, it reads as broadly applicable.
All for SaaS
Reading notes on All for SaaS. It organizes concepts and metrics worth knowing when launching and running a SaaS business, from the difference between ASP and SaaS to recurring revenue (deferred revenue) and unit economics. Suited to viewing SaaS from a business angle.
Customer Success
A review of Customer Success. Unlike customer support, which centers on handling complaints, it explains customer success as the work of helping customers succeed. You learn how, in subscription businesses, it maximizes LTV and serves as a profit center that contributes to revenue, positioned within the sales process of 'The Model.'
The Model
A review of The Model. A book explaining The Model, the systematized approach to sales cultivated at Salesforce. Through the division of labor and collaboration across marketing, inside sales, field sales, and customer success, it reveals how sales, so often labor-intensive, gains reproducibility.
A List to Understand SaaS Architecture
A compilation of resources to transition from knowing nothing about SaaS to fully understanding it.