Getting Features out to Market

Sprinting isn’t an option if there are hurdles in the way 

In the SaaS world, getting new features to market is like a sprint to the finish line. The faster you launch, the better your chance of growing market share. It’s a proven growth model that has worked for many start-ups, but it’s also been the downfall of most others. That’s because product teams often find themselves weighed down by lower-value platform management tasks rather than focusing on building what customers want. 

Adapt your practices 

Many software companies still need to rely on large, infrequent release cycles that require extensive UAT, often leaving the business with significant technical debt and bugs. It can take months to finalise a new feature.  

Instead, pivot to a continuous deployment model and release new features and updates the second they’re ready. This will cut down the development cycle, it’s more cost-effective and your customers will be happier – making it a major competitive differentiator.  

Remove any roadblocks 

If your product team is running the race, lower-value platform management tasks are hurdles. It’s crucial to remove those tasks so the team has a clear path to plan and execute on product development and feature releases – otherwise, they’re just wasting time. 

How Parallo can help redesign your product cycle

Here’s a customer example 

The problem 

There were major challenges with their product testing and release process. They used three environments across their application, each needing at least a 45-minute build time before new features or bug fixes could be tested or applied.  

This resulted in a more than 50% failure rate – despite the development team spending significant time hand-holding each build cycle. 

The solution 

Parallo re-architected all three environments and built a new automated build-and-release process. This resulted in a complete build time of just five minutes across all three environments, with 0% failure.  

Our latest eBook, From start-up to hyper-growth: how to set your SaaS business up for scale, explores the roadblocks that often trip up fast-scaling businesses – and why busywork is what sends so many SaaS companies to an early grave.