Cloud Washing and Intimate Learnings of running SaaS tech Startups

Euro Cloud Event.pdf

About manojranaweera

Founder of UnifiedVU and Venture 9. Previously Founder and CEO of edocr.com

Help companies with digital and business transformation via process optimisation and system design, especially in the areas of bringing everything together for increased productivity and revenue growth.

Software Cloud SaaS Manoj Ranaweera Northern tech Awards Software Efficiency Drift Business LiveStax tech market

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EuroCloud Manchester 
Cloud Business Meetup 
Manoj Ranaweera 
8th April 2014 
@BakerTilly 
Cloud 
Washing 
Business 
Matters for 
Cloud 
Businesses 
Cloud: Blood, 
Sweat & Tears 
Personal 
perspective on 
the growth and 
state of the SaaS 
market 
 
Intimate 
learnings from 
running tech 
startups 
+
Cloud Washing! 
n  First we had:  
n  SaaS, PaaS and IaaS 
n  Now everything is Cloud 
n  The …aaS 
 
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Cloud Computing Market Size 
n  Gartner: $131 bn in 2013 
n  Upward trend & it’s big 
n  Manchester & North West: 
n  ANS Group (£44m > £100m) 
n  UK Fast (£19m) 
n  Outsourcery (£4m) 
n  IESA (£111m) 
n  Northern Tech Awards (£1bn) 
n  SaaS investors 
n  21,000 Angel List 
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My SaaS Adventures 
n  2004 to 2006 
n  Timing + Knowledge 
n  Partner issues 
n  Trialed Customers 
n  Since 2007 
n  Over 150,000+ Users from 200+ 
countries 
n  1 million+ prospects have discovered 
50,000 professionals and businesses 
through Documents 
n  2,300 tech entrepreneurs, investors & 
deal makers 
n  Over 100 tech events 
n  Sold Northern Tech Awards to 
Investment Bank 
+
Idea to Revenues – the SaaS Way! 
n  Salesforce generated $5m revenues in first 12 
months spending $25 m in marketing & sales 
+
8 Underlying Software Trends 
n  The proliferation of quick-to-market SaaS products 
n  Simple and single function purposeful software 
n  Higher regard for design and user experience 
n  Programmatic interactions through APIs 
n  User-defined functionality, e.g. mobile handset 
n  Continuous drive of trying out new and better software 
n  Greater investment of IT by CMO 
n  Difficulty in controlling non-authorised software usage 
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LiveStax – the new Kid in town 
(sadly I’m not the father) 
n  Enterprise Application Platform-as-a-Service (aPaaS) 
n  Incubated by Causeway Technologies 
n  Framework + disposable Apps + Collaboration + 
Personalised 
n  Problem 
n  Information is scattered in many software applications 
n  Not personalised 
n  Need specialist help 
n  And the… Software Efficiency Drift.. 
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Software Efficiency Drift 
n  Life of existing software investments can be greatly extended 
by surfacing information via easy-to-build disposable Apps 
Efficiency 
Drift 
Recovered & 
improved outcome 
Efficiency 
Gain 
E
ff
ic
ie
nc
y 
Time 
Actual 
outcome 
Expected 
outcome 
Addition of 
LiveStax 
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What is LiveStax? 
LiveStax surface the RIGHT Information to the RIGHT Employee 
to do the RIGHT Job at the RIGHT Time, via easy to build Apps, 
Pages and Spaces, which surface information and functionality 
from legacy, on-premise and SaaS software, reducing employee 
frustrations and improving business productivity, whilst giving 
back control of IT to CIO.  
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Lessons learned 
n  Technology is continually improving 
n  Get positioning right (right segment) 
n  Capital is not just for the start 
n  Hire the best 
n  Build fast – scale fast – not just the product 
n  Alone no longer works 
n  Get distribution sorted 
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Enjoy the ride! 
 
For LiveStax: Manoj.ranaweera@causeway.com 
Anything else: manoj.ranaweera@edocr.com 
+44 7769734491 
@manojranaweera 
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