Why do SaaS Startups Fail?

Brisk Logic
5 min readJul 4, 2022

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Over the next four years, the SaaS market is expected to grow by 21.2%. SaaS is a great option for entrepreneurs with bright ideas, due to its low barrier of entry and attractive multi-million-dollar acquisitions. The failure rate of SaaS startups is high, just like other startup businesses. An estimated 92% of SaaS businesses fail within three years, despite their growth and funding. Why do so many SaaS startups fail to succeed? Here are some reasons SaaS startups often fail and what you can do to avoid them when building a business. Fundamentally, a SaaS company requires founders to shift their focus on metrics. SaaS businesses are run like any other online venture. Most quickly, they realize that they aren’t making money or gaining traction.

Here are the top reasons SaaS businesses fail

saas-startups

1. Manufactured goods are not available on the market

Yes. It’s not technology. SaaS businesses that fail are those that don’t solve any problem. Other people may solve a problem users don’t want to be solved. There are very few barriers to creating an app. Sites like Guru, Elance, and Freelancer allow anyone to put together a team of people from around the world and have an app developed for less than $1000. Most founders are left in limbo when their app is not being developed. This problem can be avoided by using Lean Startup methods and being customer-centric. You simply need to create a small solution and then see if it is popular. You can then tweak the solution and scale it according to user feedback and requirements.

2. Failure Business Model

Most entrepreneurs believe that it is simple to get customers after adopting a lean startup model. There are many stories of SaaS companies that have been successful in securing profitability. After building their product, they assume customers will just show up and sign up. While this may work for the initial few customers, it is not true in all cases. Acquiring customers is a costly task. Additionally, metrics such as: the lifetime value of the customer is not specified. cost to acquire customers (CAC) may be higher than LTV. This means that more money is being spent than the revenue generated. Entrepreneurs should answer these questions when considering the SaaS model for business:

  • Is it possible to scale up our efforts to acquire users?
  • Is it possible to monetize these users at higher levels than our CAC?

SaaS startups must find ways to increase LTV and keep the CAC down to have a viable business model. Inbound marketing strategies can be used to increase customer acquisition without spending too much.

3. Higher Growth Rates than Churn

To make a SaaS business profitable, the churn must remain constant with customer growth. If churn (customer turnover) is higher than growth (customer acquisition), then the business will fail. SaaS companies must focus on keeping churn to a minimum. Churn can be caused by many factors beyond the control of the company. One example is that a customer might change their priorities and choose another business. Or, they may decide to go out of business. Even eliminated from some contributing factors. Poor service, disappointment with the product, or the availability of better products on the market can all be avoided. You can also keep track of your competitors and ensure you have the most comprehensive feature set to maximize customer satisfaction. These activities will ensure that your growth rate is higher than churn and help you to achieve profitability over the long term.

4. First-to-Market

You don’t necessarily have to be an early mover in every market. However, doing things right doesn’t guarantee you will succeed. Being too early is a bad thing. Even if your product is successful, your competitors can see it and make mistakes. They can then build on your successes and avoid the ones that were not. You need to be more cautious if you are an early participant in your industry. A competitor can easily take your business model, with all its mistakes and shortcomings, at any moment. It is easy to lose your efforts in identifying customer pain, building market demand, and creating the first product on the market. Only for another party to take your entire development effort to create a better product. SaaS businesses should be quick-movers, not first-movers. A constantly evolving product, unrivalled customer service and unrivalled support are key ingredients to the success of a fast-mover SaaS product.

5. Frustratingly Fast Adoption

Customers can’t use your product if you make it difficult. SaaS teams tend to focus on the core product and neglect other support systems such as billing, provisioning, and onboarding. It will be hard to get traction if you do provisions manually or don’t offer trials. Customers should be able to use your product as quickly as possible without any hassle. You should not make it difficult for customers to use your app by imposing rigid pricing plans. SaaS has revolutionized the software industry. The business model depends on customers staying with you for the long term. Your customers should be satisfied by you providing quality products, great support, and minimizing friction in conversions.

6. Poor Management Team

A weak management team is another reason SaaS businesses fail. Management should be able to recognize and avoid these five factors. Poor management teams are often unable to plan and fail to do enough work before and during product development. They can also continue to work with poor marketing strategies. SaaS management plays an important role in setting the direction of the company. The good health of a SaaS company is dependent on the ability of its management team to research and understand its target market, implement growth strategies, and execute customer acquisition strategies. Great management teams will find great people to work for them, from dev to marketing. It is well-known that A players hire B players in the business. A player hires only C players because they aren’t interested in working for other B players. This results in a weak company.

Build a profitable SaaS Startups with Brisk Logic

You may avoid these issues and manage a successful SaaS company now that you are aware of the primary causes of SaaS startup failure. Even while product development is crucial, you shouldn’t ignore other elements like pricing, integrations, and client onboarding. Among SaaS organizations today, the customer experience is one of the most important differentiators. As a result, you should develop and put into action tactics that emphasize both customer retention and product uptake. These are just a few of the reasons that most SaaS businesses fail. Do you know of any other factors that contribute to SaaS businesses that we have not mentioned? Contact Brisk Logic. This article, we hope, was insightful. Let us know what other factors contribute to the failure of SaaS startups in the comments section below. https://www.brisklogic.co/why-do-saas-startups-fail/?feed_id=435&_unique_id=62c32aa747b59

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Brisk Logic
Brisk Logic

Written by Brisk Logic

Build digital products faster, smarter, and scalable. We aim to develop the greatest digital products that are lightning-fast, at a significantly lower cost.

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