Will SAAS Die in the Near Future?- Bob Armbrister - Episode #33

Agencies That Build

Mar 7 2022 • 52 mins

Bob Armbrister is the President and CEO of SPARK Business Works. Bob has led SPARK to serve hundreds of clients using a business-first approach to custom software. He leans on his experience as CIO at a national construction management firm to implement "The SPARK Way" – an approach of practical innovation that helps business leaders build tech that gets adopted (and brings ROI).

Discussion Points:

  • What myth or bogus strategy do you want to bust?  2:22
  • Tell us more about your experience with the SAAS products. 3:21
  • How does your billing model work? 6:20
  • What were your exit plans to shape your decisions? 9:20
  • Tell us more about your statement developers are winning.13:40
  • How is your business set up now? 18:00
  • Tell us about some of the experiences that you had, during the process of buying other agencies. 21:30
  • What would you say was kind of one mistake that you made. 24:00
  • Tell us about how you got into this business. 23:32
  • Is there any tip or trick that you use to keep your employee's stay? 28:00
  • How have things changed w/COVID? 30:50
  • How do you manage your team? 34:20
  • How have you kept the team connected? 36:31
  • Tell us about your experience with offshoring? 39:13
  • What keeps you up at night? 49:00

Takeaways

  • You don't have to make sure that your idea is going to be the winner, if you're the one, servicing the entrepreneur and so.
  • The biggest thing in a SaaS business is churn. You're constantly trying to figure out churn, why are people leaving? What aren't you doing? What features do you need, you're trying to guess.
  • Not everybody has the same exit plan or the same strategy in terms of what growth looks like. - Jessie
  • The pressure on software-based markets is also the same as the service-based markets.
  • Entrepreneurs get it right one in a million.
  • The more experience you have, the more value you can add to the customer.
  • The more failures we have made in the past, make us able to not repeat them with future customers.
  • The Discovery of a problem is absolutely important. But at the same time, the person who is making that discovery also plays a huge role. - Varun

Links

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobarmbrister/
  • Company website: https://www.sparkbusinessworks.com/

Busted Myths:

  • Custom software is going to be needed for a long time.