Pro & Cons for young SaaS companies

Why should we use young SaaS providers?

Pro Arguments

1. You have the undivided attention of the company, being one of the few customers
2. There is no hierarchy of people to take decisions or to steer the development direction
3. They will listen to your requests and may implement them, if it does make business sense
4. They will leverage the sales with you, and for that reason alone (marketing by example) will double the efforts to present you as an example of happy customer
5. You can get a better deal and also they will polish their product by fitting it to the industry standards they serve
6. They will put you under the microscope to understand how a typical user is handling their product
7. There is no buffering between the sales person and people making changes in the software for you. The execution time is several time shorter than in any medium to large software service company
8. Customization is the name of the game with a small service provider
9. They want to win your trust and will over-deliver
10. A new SaaS company does not have a technical debt to old technologies and may use different development platforms that proved more mature over time. Betting on some not so successful software technologies may create heavy debts in time and will slow large companies (remember Visual Basic ?)
11. A new SaaS may employ services, processes and ways of development that are hard to adopt in an established software company.

Why you should not employ a young SaaS company?

Cons Arguments

1. the danger of being left without support due to economic decisions or acquiring maneuvers
2. sometimes small companies over promise in features and under estimate the execution time. It is all about the experience in managing customer expectation and being aware of all potential pitfalls in your previous professional life
3. their resources are limited and might take longer to get where you want to be
4. potentially lack of technical depth for large projects

Summary