SaaS
What Every SaaS Needs From Day One
The unglamorous parts of a SaaS product that are cheap to build early and expensive to add later.
A2S Venture team · November 1, 2026
Accounts, roles and data separation
Most SaaS products end up serving teams, not individuals. Design for organisations with several users and roles from the start, even if your first customers are small.
Keep each customer’s data cleanly separated too. Adding that to a finished product is one of the most painful changes there is.
Billing that can change
Your pricing will change, probably more than once. Use a proven payment provider and keep your plans in configuration rather than scattered through the code.
Handle the awkward cases early: failed payments, upgrades partway through a month, cancellations and refunds.
Admin tools and visibility
You will need to look up a customer, see what happened and fix it without asking an engineer. A simple internal admin screen pays for itself quickly.
Add logging and basic usage tracking as well, so you can answer support questions and see which features people actually use.