Are SaaS owners open to "DaaS"?

[disciple777]

Like the title reads, it seems companies are working with design agencies less and less in favor of an internal team as that agency process is quite annoying with meetings, estimations, and a scope which 99% of the times needs revision and additional costs.

Obviously having an internal product design team is better as you can communicate more efficiently and not worry about scope/contracts etc.

I'm sure some of you have heard of design agencies offering design as a subscription lately, and I don't want to come across as just self promotional here as I'm launching a "DaaS" model as well, but I genuinely believe it's been long due design agencies evolved their business model.

Why's it better in my view is that you can basically just subscribe and cancel without any contract commitment, like a SaaS, and submit any request to a task board (e.g. design for a landing page, branding, mobile app, or 3D/2D visuals and animation).

Hiring an internal team that does all that is a lot of $$$ compared to a sub. and takes a lot more time to find the right people.

Some of the pushback I've received is that it doesn't fully replace that connection you have a with a full time employee, but I believe it's a way for early stage companies to get their product designed quickly, and then bring on more design full time employees as they grow (as long as that DaaS service has experience with product design).

I'm open to feedback on my website as well (designotion), been in this industry for a long time and I quite believe in this new business model, but would like to better understand some of the barriers to entry for you as SaaS owners.

 

[kates]

@disciple777 The DaaS model is not actually solving a real problem.

I can already hire a designer on Upwork for $10 - $15 / hour and work with them the same way you are proposing here.

The problem is actually project management. Whether I hire on Upwork or hire your DaaS, I still have to oversee the work, do Q/A, chat with the designers, tell them my brand voice, etc.

Simply giving me access to your internal Trello board doesn't solve this problem for me; it makes it worse because you're giving me yet another tool I have to manage.

 

[khazarian1]

@kates A good DaaS and a 10 to 15 dollar Upwork hire is miles apart in difference.

 

[kates]

@khazarian1 I’m hire dozens of people on Upwork. “DaaS is just better” is a nonsense answer to the legitimate problem I posted in my comment above.

 

[khazarian1]

@kates I said a GOOD DaaS, not just any DaaS service. Likewise you can hire amazing people on upwork, they just aren't generally 10-15 per hour.

 

[kates]

@khazarian1 Disagree. I have a staff of amazing people ranging from $5-$20.

 

[khazarian1]

@kates I've trialed a few designers for under 15, it's woeful.

 

[kates]

@khazarian1 My best designer is $12 and he’s been with me for three years. Anecdotal evidence still doesn’t address the pain point I mentioned above.

 

[khazarian1]

@kates Same for you? Good that you got one great one for 12 dollar but I doubt in 2024 that's the norm.

 

[kates]

@khazarian1 Well, it is for me. I hire on Upwork daily. Sorry you had a bad experience.

 

[ryanjameskirby]

@kates I hire on upwork often too and find it very easy and convenient to use, I don’t really see myself as a client moving to a DaaS

 

[lelier]

@kates You can add me to your list. Best designer I work with is $13 started out at $10 a couple years ago.

 

[disciple777]

@kates I hear you on the project management, and that is something which we hope to do on our end to an extent.
So if we receive a design request for a landing page, you would expect we know the steps to bring that from idea to delivery.
Our expectation is that you wouldn't have to do any more management that you would do with an internal team.

I respectfully have to disagree regarding Upwork for two reasons:

• Finding someone who can do what you're set to do takes time there. You would expect that by design subscription all that's taken care of.
• $10-$15 wouldn't get you a product designer, who has experience in designing products that convert. But you would find someone who can design a UI and rely on you to actually figure out the user flow and manage the process.

But heard on that, management is something that should be highlighted more in my offering! So thank you!

 

[trumpeter2]

@disciple777 I have to disagree with your disagreements.

1. Finding an agency that fits in a companies vision can take just as long as finding freelancers. Just because you have a team doesn't mean every project you are going to work on fits to the vision and expectations of the owner, meaning it could take a lot more iterations until something is completed.
2. $10-$15 can get you great designers and managers on various platforms and networks with diverse experiences. And it doesn't even take that long.

But still, good luck on your venture!

 

[disciple777]

@trumpeter2

1. At designotion we give clients a 48 hour "trial" time in which they can get a full refund if the expectations are not there (after subscribing of course, as that would probably get us lots of people taking advantage of the service).
   
   Right, it might not fit your vision, but you can get in and out of the contract in minutes. If you hire a freelancer it takes a bit more, and if you hire the wrong full time employee its quite harder as well. So, that issue is not inexistent in any case, but it's simply just an easier way to decide if you like the service or not.
2. Like I said, probably talented people but not with much experience for 10-15$. Would you trust that designer to decide the sales funnel of your offering or would you "design" it in your head and just give instructions to that designer?

 

[kates]

@disciple777 There you go.

I am working on a SaaS project. You can see the entire build on r/SaaSy. I had to design the workflow myself, and while I had design help, I spent countless hours on the architecture.

If you could solve that problem, I would use your service. But that’s not on your landing page.

 

[gabbleduck]

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[ophelias11garden]

@disciple777 As someone who has 2 SaaS businesses in the 15-20 MRR range that I’ve designed and built myself, I think product design as a service is interesting.

As several other users here have pointed out, there are more offerings here than there used to be, but what I’ve seen personally when I’ve looked in the past is you have a whole cluster of one-off DaaS providers doing IG content, ads and a little landing page design for $1,000ish/month and then you have product designers in the $3k-$5k range.

IG was never an effective sales channel for me so the small guys weren’t right and the budget at the top end didn’t fit where I was at so I ended up buying templates for $50-$100 and copying those in my build.

I’d have loved to have a design partner on the product side (and still would), but where that gets interesting for me personally is in the $2kish per month range.

Anything above that and I run the time math of fishing through the Upwork cesspool to try to find someone good that I can work with periodically rather than on a full time basis.

Considerations on PDaaS:

• Product design requirements aren’t as consistent as ads/landing/etc. Once I build out an area, I don’t refresh that design until my clients tell me they need me to.
• Turnaround time requirements aren’t as stringent in product design. If you need a design for a Dashboard in 48 hours, you’ve done a shitty job of planning your build and you’re better off buying a template.
• UX research and UI elements on a product build are both front-end loaded, meaning most of the help we’d need would be within the first month or two of a build. After that, requirements slow down quite a bit.
• A lot of bootstrapped founders (myself included) have already built out our platforms. We have active users and we’re generating revenue, but just about all of us would like our platforms to look better. What would be helpful for us (and I’m not clear on how you’d execute on this) is a package where you take existing designs and level those up. Either as a coaching package or a couple months of first laying out design elements and then page by page design updates.

In general, I like where your head is at here, but as others have suggested the people with the budget to pay for this the way you’ve structured your pricing are likely not reading this sub.

What not scrape job boards to find large corps who are trying to hire junior to mid level designers and then reach out to them directly through LI or other channels to pitch the service as an alternative to a full time hire?

 

[disciple777]

@ophelias11garden Thank you for the feedback, I agree and overall it seems like my messaging on the website is not where it should be. I need to target the actual pain points mentioned in your comment and a couple others noted

 

[nina723]

@disciple777 I have no need for it as a SaaS developer, but I’ve also always wanted to start my own dev agency where I’d outsource any design work to a DaaS.