[0:00] What is SaaS?
[0:01] Software as a Service?
[0:03] I'm going to take 5 minutes to break it
[0:05] down, make it super simple for you
[0:07] so that you can finally understand
[0:09] all these people
[0:10] talking about SaaS, SaaS, SaaS.
[0:13] Why is it so much fun
[0:14] and why does it matter for you?
[0:15] I've been actually building
[0:16] software companies for 25 years.
[0:19] I started off writing code
[0:21] way before we called it SaaS.
[0:23] It was called
[0:24] essentially ‘the Internet’,
[0:25] and we were building applications
[0:26] on top of the Internet.
[0:27] And since then,
[0:28] I've personally built five companies.
[0:31] I've exited three.
[0:32] Two of them were venture
[0:34] backed out of Silicon Valley.
[0:35] I've invested in 50
[0:36] plus and I've helped literally
[0:38] thousands of software CEOs
[0:41] start,
[0:42] grow and exit their software company.
[0:45] But I want to teach it for you
[0:47] so that you understand
[0:48] when other people are like,
[0:49] Yeah, I think we should work on
[0:50] this SaaS idea,
[0:51] you can understand what it is
[0:52] and what it's not and help
[0:54] you explain it to other people.
[0:55] So let's get into it.
[0:58] Number
[0:58] one, is it’s subscription based.
[1:00] It means that you pay every month
[1:03] to get access to the technology.
[1:05] Think about all the tools
[1:06] maybe you pay for like, you know, iTunes
[1:10] or Spotify or Netflix.
[1:12] These are consumer
[1:13] versions of subscriptions.
[1:16] But in the business world, B2B,
[1:20] these are
[1:20] the tools that all the businesses use
[1:22] to run their company.
[1:23] It's the accounting
[1:24] software, it's the merchant account,
[1:26] it's the project management
[1:28] software, the spreadsheet software,
[1:30] the workflow tools, the email
[1:32] marketing tools.
[1:32] All of these are things that people,
[1:35] businesses pay for these applications
[1:37] every month on a subscription basis.
[1:41] Number two is that it's hosted remotely.
[1:44] Now, I know for some of you guys
[1:45] you’re like,
[1:45] what do you mean it's hosted remotely?
[1:47] Where else would it be hosted?
[1:48] When I first started writing software
[1:51] back in the day, back in my day,
[1:53] I used to spend
[1:53] a lot of time in server rooms
[1:55] because the way software was
[1:57] deployed, was literally on CDs
[2:00] and you would take those CDs
[2:02] and you'd go into the server room
[2:03] and you'd freeze your bum off,
[2:05] because the computer's run better
[2:06] and it's more efficient
[2:07] and you would just like load
[2:09] all the software onto these computers
[2:11] and then people would usually access
[2:14] the software
[2:15] through other terminal clients
[2:17] or other software
[2:18] on their computer through the network.
[2:20] It wasn't hosted remotely up in “the
[2:24] cloud” right?
[2:25] Which is what
[2:26] a lot of people do today, is that
[2:28] it is not installed on your servers,
[2:30] it's installed in the company
[2:31] servers and it’s
[2:32] usually right now installed on Amazon.
[2:35] And that way it doesn't require
[2:37] a major investment in hardware
[2:39] for you to buy software,
[2:40] to deploy it, to use it.
[2:42] Number three
[2:43] is that it's accessible
[2:44] through the Internet.
[2:45] Now I know,
[2:46] some of you guys are like, well,
[2:46] how else would you access it?
[2:49] Truth was, is back in the day
[2:50] you would access the software
[2:53] through the local network.
[2:54] It was abnormal for a business
[2:56] to host their information
[2:57] on somebody else's servers.
[2:59] It wasn't
[3:00] till this cool company called Salesforce
[3:02] that came along and with their marketing
[3:05] and tens of millions of dollars of spend,
[3:08] convinced the business community
[3:11] that it is safe and okay for you
[3:15] to upload your sensitive customer
[3:17] information to their system
[3:20] and allow your team
[3:22] to access it through the Internet,
[3:24] through a traditional
[3:26] login, a username and password.
[3:29] Prior to that, there was VPNs
[3:30] required and deep security
[3:32] and all these other things,
[3:33] and it was just a no go for businesses
[3:37] to trust their proprietary customer
[3:40] data on somebody else's system.
[3:42] And now this is how we do it.
[3:44] Pretty much every one of the SaaS
[3:46] tools out there, you just log in
[3:49] using a username and password
[3:50] and you're good to go.
[3:51] Number four is it's scalable.
[3:54] Here's why I love this one.
[3:56] Scalable means that it doesn't
[3:58] matter if you start off with one account
[4:01] and it's just you
[4:02] and you're
[4:02] using this software as a service
[4:04] or you have 10,000
[4:07] team members that decide, you know what,
[4:09] we're going to move everything
[4:11] from email over to Slack, right?
[4:14] Or whatever it is.
[4:15] You're going to move
[4:15] all your project management
[4:16] from one software to this other software,
[4:19] and you can literally just invite
[4:21] everybody through a link
[4:22] and they all register
[4:24] and they start using this new product.
[4:26] All SaaS companies
[4:27] have an auto scalable feature
[4:30] that it doesn't matter
[4:31] if you're one or 10,000,
[4:33] it will spin up the servers,
[4:35] it will spin up
[4:36] the databases,
[4:37] it will spin up
[4:37] the backend infrastructure
[4:39] so that it can keep up to the demand.
[4:42] And that makes it powerful
[4:44] because prior to SaaS,
[4:46] you'd have to go and buy
[4:47] a physical server,
[4:48] go install the software,
[4:50] add it to the network
[4:51] and try to configure it for it
[4:53] to be load balanced.
[4:54] Now you think of none of that.
[4:56] You just send invites to your team
[4:58] to use the product
[4:59] and you don't even think twice
[5:01] that it's
[5:01] going to be available
[5:03] or fast once they sign up.
[5:05] Number five is regular updates.
[5:07] This is probably the coolest part
[5:09] that a lot of people take for granted.
[5:11] SaaS is neat
[5:12] because the code is managed on
[5:14] somebody else's server
[5:16] and when there's updates to the code
[5:19] you don't have to do anything.
[5:20] It literally new versions just happen
[5:23] to get released or you log in and there's
[5:25] a little notification window
[5:26] that says like, alert,
[5:28] new software update
[5:29] and it tells you about the two
[5:30] or three new features
[5:31] and you're like,
[5:31] very cool,
[5:32] take a tour
[5:33] or accept the changes or whatever,
[5:35] and then the software just gets better.
[5:37] Prior to it
[5:38] being hosted, and being software
[5:40] as a service,
[5:41] you used to have to get the update on CD
[5:44] and then literally spend more time
[5:46] freezing your bum off in a server room
[5:48] and updating the code
[5:49] and then letting everybody know how
[5:51] all those changes
[5:52] were going to affect their workflow
[5:54] so that they didn't
[5:55] get lost in their ability
[5:56] to keep doing their work
[5:58] at their computer.
[5:59] And it was just this big process
[6:01] of change management.
[6:02] With SaaS,
[6:02] the software just gets updated,
[6:04] it gets better.
[6:05] It's clearly communicated.
[6:07] You don't have to worry about CDs
[6:09] and updates and all this stuff.
[6:11] The companies take care of it
[6:12] so that like as the years progress,
[6:15] you keep paying the same amount of money
[6:17] every month, yet
[6:18] the developers
[6:19] keep making the code better.
[6:21] So that it’s actually an incredible deal
[6:23] because you get new innovation
[6:25] and new updates and new capabilities
[6:28] that you didn't have to pay for,
[6:29] and it's just part of the subscription.
[6:31] So there you go, a five minute
[6:33] breakdown of
[6:34] what is Software as a Service, SaaS.
[6:37] It makes it easy for businesses
[6:39] to pay monthly, hosted in the cloud,
[6:41] get updates
[6:42] without having to deal
[6:43] with anything themselves.
[6:45] It's scalable.
[6:46] That's what it's about.
[6:47] And it's a powerful way for you
[6:49] not only to build software,
[6:51] but also consume it
[6:52] so that you don't have to spend
[6:53] a ton of money
[6:54] upfront and get very powerful tools
[6:57] and workflows to help you in your life.
[7:00] If you like this video,
[7:01] be sure to check out
[7:01] other videos
[7:02] I've done on SaaS, on writing code,
[7:04] on building companies, etc.
[7:06] They're all available for you.
[7:08] I hope this finds you awesome and
[7:09] I’ll see you next week.