Product and Branding will win the Customer

As the year is starting, I’d like to share a few thoughts on what could be interesting in the SaaS world in 2017.

The mobile-native generation takes a user-centric product experience for granted. These expectations have continuously entered the B2B space and will set the bar fairly high for new SaaS companies in 2017. In this perspective, product managers will play a greater role in companies since they are the ones who generally have a deep understanding of the users’ needs and we will see more designers in the founding team.

Following design, it strikes me that especially the younger generation values authentic brands. Zendesk, Slack or Intercom for example did a fantastic job in creating unique B2B SaaS brands. In addition to an increased user-centric focus, I think that SaaS companies will invest more into branding to attract new customers and benefit from loyal customers who value that brand.

Lastly, I believe voice will be an enabler for a new breed of user-centric SaaS solutions, especially for mobile. First applications are being created from incumbents to run an analysis in their system of records via search, e.g. “how many customers have churned this month” and you favorite SaaS tools shows you the answer. However, there is also a lot of room for founders to create SaaS companies around voice control.

My bold prediction: An identity verification solution will be the first killer blockchain application.