From Concept to Reality: Our Journey of Building SaaS Software for Audits and Inspections

Hi, I’m thrilled to share our journey of pivoting from a customer experience management company to developing a SaaS solution Pulse . This series will take you through every phase of our 0-1 (Ongoing) journey, from the inception of our idea to overcoming the various challenges we faced. Whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur, a tech enthusiast, or simply interested in the SaaS space, I hope you find our story both enlightening and inspiring.

The Unexpected Pivot

Our journey began in a place of uncertainty and adversity. Our earlier venture, a customer experience management company focused on developing technology for mystery shopping, was shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many businesses, we were hit hard, with no business coming in. However, we still had our core team intact, a group of talented and dedicated individuals.

It was during this challenging period that we decided to pivot. One of our clients, who had remained engaged with us, was exploring tools to ensure food safety during the pandemic. This need sparked an idea: could we leverage our existing expertise to develop an audit and inspection tool?

Creating the Proof of Concept (PoC)

With this new direction in mind, we quickly shifted gears and set out to create a Proof of Concept (PoC). The urgency of the situation fueled our drive, and in a short span of time, we had a basic version of our software ready. This initial phase was crucial, as it allowed us to validate our idea and gather feedback.

We were fortunate to collaborate with a couple of early customers who were willing to test our PoC. Their feedback was invaluable. We learned about the specific needs and pain points of the industry, especially around safety inspections and compliance during the pandemic.

Understanding the Needs

Our early customers highlighted several critical requirements:

Streamlined Processes: There was a need for automation to replace inefficient manual processes.

Real-Time Data: Access to real-time data for quick decision-making was essential.

Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring adherence to evolving safety regulations was a top priority.

Ease of Use: The solution had to be user-friendly, accommodating staff with varying levels of tech-savviness.

Armed with these insights, we rapidly iterated on our PoC, implementing solutions that addressed these specific needs.

Securing Seed Funding

Recognizing the potential of our new venture, we approached angel investors as well as family and friends for seed funding. Their belief in our vision and capabilities provided the financial support we needed to take our idea to the next level.

The seed funding allowed us to:

Expand Our Team: Bring in additional developers and industry experts.

Enhance Our Product: Further develop and refine our audit and inspection software.

Accelerate Go-to-Market: Begin strategizing our market launch and customer acquisition.

In this first part of our series, we’ve covered the pivot that set us on our new path, the rapid development of our PoC, and securing initial seed funding. In the next article, we’ll dive deeper into our development phase, the challenges we faced, and the milestones we achieved as we moved closer to our official product launch.        

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our journey. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to sharing more of our story with you!