9 Hot SaaS Ideas to Improve Remote Work

Around a decade ago, business and scientific communities were inspired by the “Big Data” concept. Although it originated in the early 1990s, by 2010, thanks to the development of technologies, data analysis became popular as ever. It seemed it was only worth collecting as many statistics as possible, and there you have it - keys to answering all the questions are right in your pocket. That, however, has not happened.

A data-based approach in problem-solving has been criticized for lack of aptness. Researchers, for example, authors of the “You May Not Need Big Data After All” article, pointed out that plain data arrays lacked an essential thing - human creative thinking. It became clear that analytical thinking alone wasn’t enough in today’s ambiguous environment, so new approaches appeared in the arena. And in particular - design thinking.

Leading knowledge centers like IBM, Coursera, and Harvard Business School offer “Design Thinking” courses. This fact proves that the demand for creative reasoning techniques is considerable. Hard skills are no longer enough for market leaders companies like Google or Apple - they look for innovative people who can take effective solutions in the face of uncertainty and think out of the box.

Design thinking is usually accompanied by another creative methodology called “human-centered design”. Because we at Eleken use both approaches, we decided to deepen into what they have in common and what differs between them. After reading the article, you will not have any questions left regarding the “Human-Centered Design vs Design Thinking” subject.

What is design thinking?

There are two approaches you can use to solve problems or put opportunities into action. The first is the analytical approach. According to it, you should think about the known facts and perform an in-depth analysis of each of the problem's elements.

The second approach is the design thinking process. It implies that you should iterate creative techniques, such as brainstorming, prototyping, testing, and others, and strive to find non-obvious effective solutions. 

Design thinking is a process for creative problem-solving. It is a cornerstone for giving rise to innovative products and services. It allows us to resolve complex and tricky challenges and bring production quality and customer needs satisfaction to the very next level.

How companies can apply design thinking to solve problems

In business, the design thinking process gives rise to innovative goods and even entire companies. Let's consider several design thinking examples.

Up to the 2000s, immensely high costs for launching a kilogram of freight to space were a compelling obstacle for private companies willing to explore the Universe. When Elon Musk announced the ambitious desire to colonize Mars, he focused on the “How to reduce space transportation costs” issue rather than “How to partner with state-owned aerospace manufacturers”. Consequently, he established SpaceX - a company aimed to build reusable rockets and involve private funds in R&Ds. 

Here's another example of the power of design thinking in science. Over several decades one of the biggest challenges for NASA engineers was to safely land the Mars rover. Historically, rovers had 3 legs that often broke when they crashed into the planet's surface at speed. One of the NASA engineers, Mark Adler, looked at the issue with rovers from a different angle. He realized that the true problem was not the durability of rover legs but gravity, which caused a crushing hit during landing.

Adler's solution was brilliantly simple - to equip the Mars rover with air cushions that covered it like a cocoon, making it bounce off the surface up to 40 times before the final stop.

Design thinking isn’t an exclusive privilege for heavy industry. Ordinary things that we are used to, like a safety belt or a Heinz ketchup bottle, are great examples of what happens when a person asks “What if…?”.

Steps of design thinking

The idea around design thinking is to distance from “vertical” logic, the classic method in problem-solving, and move from a given towards new.

The design thinking process includes 5 steps:

1. Identifying the root of a problem

Innovative solutions start with questioning what is generally known. The design thinking process implies that you respond to questions with counter-questions and proceed with the series until the answer beсomes apparent.

Instead of focusing on "how" to do something, you first need to understand "why" a particular issue occurs. If your goal is to create the ever-best booking app, start with "Why do people use booking apps at all?" and list assumptions.

People use booking apps to:

• ...compare prices
• ...find safe accommodation options
• ...see photos made by other customers
• ...read other visitors reviews
• ...read travel tips
• ...or - for all of the above.

For ideation purposes, you may use the following techniques:

• brainstorming
• polls
• interviews
• drawing on parallels
• SCAMPER technique, and others.

2. Reasoning alternatives

Distinguish less relevant ideas from essential ones, and elaborate the latter even more.

3. Generating ideas

Concentrate on how you can satisfy the “root problem” the way your competitors can't. For example, if you think that the majority of users install booking apps to search for the cheapest accommodation offers, think about how you will meet the need from various perspectives.

To provide app users with the cheapest accommodation options, I can:

• create convenient filtering options based on price
• implement ranking systems to distinguish value-for-price rooms
• partner with hotels to get exclusive discounts
• create a special subscription plan for corporate users.

4. Creating sketches or prototypes

All the great things are simple, but simplicity is often backed by hard work. One of the essential steps of design thinking is modeling. No matter how well-thought your ideas are, you can't see pitfalls without a sketch or physical prototype.

5. Testing prototypes & adjusting the initial idea

Organize focus groups and ask participants to interact with a beta version of a product. Consider their feedback about the prototype before bringing the idea to mass production.

What is human-centered design (HCD)?

Human-centered design, or HCD, is an approach for developing products or services with the needs of real people in mind. The term is used concerning Design, but it becomes more and more accustomed among diverse businesses. 

The human-centered design suggests that companies will produce more valuable outcomes if they consider the context of users' problems, their motivations, and requirements for goods or services.

The implementation of human-centered design is beneficial for both parties. While users get higher quality goods and services, companies don’t rack their brains on how to create demand for what they’ve produced.

Human-centered design principles

Human-centered design isn’t just about creating innovative or offbeat things. It’s more about how to make production outcomes useful and, hence, marketable.

Below we listed 5 essential human-centered design principles:

1. Not being a “desk explorer”

Know what your customers love and leave - get in touch with them via social media, see what content they share and what attracts their attention, collect opinions with polls, create buyer persona profiles, and so on.

2. Keeping an open mind

The human-centered design is against any clichés and prejudgements. Always start investigating the problem with a clean slate and don’t be afraid to ask naive questions.

3. Considering different perspectives

Don't be hung up on your ideal customer profile - consider opinions regarding desirable product characteristics from different users.

4. Designing the entire journey of the product

What will the user do with the product after the expiration date or in case it breaks? The human-centered design places convenience at the heart of planning and development processes, so you should foresee different use-cases regarding the product and make them as trouble-free as possible.

5. Creating prototypes and testing them in a real environment

The more you test your product on real users, the better the outcome will be. The human-centered design approach supposes making trial runs, so you can’t do without drawings, mock-ups, and prototypes.

You can also learn about psychology in UX design to better understand how human behavior impacts user experience and use this knowledge to develop more apt products.

How companies can achieve better business results with human-centered design

Business is much about the “Penny saved is a penny earned” saying. So, it may seem that spending extra money on creative techniques, like ideation or one-on-one interviews with customers, isn’t worth the hustle. But the truth is - human-centered design principles allow companies to accumulate unique deep knowledge about their clients and create products that speak for themselves.

Any business challenge, like decreased conversions or market shares, can be analyzed from the human perspective. Consequently, a company may come up with more effective solutions than if it was trying to solve the problem, relying on its picture of the world.

A great example of human-centered design implementation is Amazon. Everyone knows the company as a pioneer in online retail, but back in 1995, when it had started, online shopping was not as convenient and enjoyable as we know it today. Although Ecommerce websites were considered revolutionary at that time, from today's perspective, it hurts just looking at them.

Amazon aimed to become a market leader, so it followed technologies and invested in innovations - to make the online shopping experience more convenient for users. They were the first to allow posting user reviews and implemented a “1-click ordering” option. Just 3 years after launch, they were already using a left sidebar and tabs - to ease navigation across the website and stimulate purchases.

Jeff Bezos once said: “I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.” This quote is, perhaps, the creed of the Amazon. And - a brief explanation of the importance of the human-centered design process for companies.

Design thinking vs HCD - mind the difference

“Design thinking” and “human-centered design” are often referred to as synonyms, and for a reason. Both approaches represent a creative way of solving problems or implementing opportunities.

Definitions of the two terms overlay significantly, but not wholly. The difference between design thinking and human-centered design lies in headlining priorities:

• the core idea of the design thinking process is to come up with a non-obvious effective solution
• the core idea of human-centered design is to bring the highest possible value to users.

A company can use design thinking principles to create something innovative. And combined with a human-centered design approach, it can assure that the innovation is beneficial for users. The two approaches work in synergy and allow a company to satisfy customer needs better and, hence, stay competitive in the long term.

How should you combine design thinking with human-centered design phases?

You can easily combine two approaches into a multi-purpose and straightforward “loop”:

1. Start with in-depth learning of users' unsatisfied needs, motives, and behavioral patterns.
2. List as many possible solutions to the identified “gaps” as you can, no matter how strange or obvious they seem
3. Shortlist ideas or possible solutions by diverging and converging them
4. Ideate different use cases
5. Create prototypes and test them on real users
6. Adjust the idea or solution according to users’ feedback.

No matter what exactly you do - develop a new application or try to boost your business growth - you can alter design thinking with a human-centered design approach and get a double or triple effect on efforts spent.

Wrapping up

Human-centered design and design thinking aren’t conflicting notions, so there’s nothing wrong with using them as synonyms colloquially. Still, you should remember the two terms slightly differ in underlining the key outcome of the creative thinking process. 

While design thinking emphasizes the importance of an unconventional course to create something innovative, the human-centered design puts the user’s comfort at the core. And when two approaches are combined, they become a creative thinking combo.

Bu the way, if you want to learn more about the applied use of design thinking, you can read our other article on  “Design Thinking & Minimum Viable Product”.

Digital transformation, accelerated by COVID-19, has opened many new opportunities for many businesses, but most of all, it has changed the way we work. According to Global Workplace Analytics, almost 70% of U.S. workers telecommuted at the peak of the lockdown, and 82% of American employees want to work remotely at least once a week after the pandemic ends. This recent experience has proven that work from home (WFH) can be productive and therefore will have a lasting impact.

As a SaaS design team that has gone fully remote at the beginning of 2020, we love to keep track of new tools for remote work (RW) that appear on the market today. Moreover, we had a chance to notice that more and more startup owners that come to us for UI/UX design, want their products to help people create a more convenient and well-organized RW. 

The truth is, that even without a pandemic, having a reliable tool stack that keeps your team connected is crucial for modern businesses’ success.

In this article, we are going to discuss nine interesting remote work startup ideas based on challenges that both employers and employees face while working remotely.

Biggest remote work challenges and how technologies can help overcome them

Undoubtedly, remote work has many benefits for everyone, from the ability to cut costs, decrease employee turnover and access a wider talent pool for employers, to additional freedom, time, and money-saving for workers. But simply going remote and expecting to live happily ever after won’t work as there are a number of challenges that this new environment brings.

That’s why entrepreneurs try to come up with tools that can recreate the usual work process we all got used to for a new way of working. And some problem areas are a bit overlooked and are still waiting for a decent solution to come. Let’s take a look at several ideas on how to work remotely more effectively.

Team bonding

Working from home has robbed us of such joys as dining together with teammates, having office competitions, sharing news during water cooler chattings, and so on. Being together in the office used to help us come up with creative ideas and think outside the box. 

Therefore, employers are thinking of ways to help their team members get to know each other, build trust, and create networks while being online.

Even though you're not working in the same physical space, there are still ways to make your team feel connected and engaged. Think about how customer support teams care and communicate with customers, and apply that in your SaaS startup.

One great tool that can help resolve this issue is Hibob. As the pandemic shut physical workplaces, Hibob noticed its customers looking for new means to promote two-way interaction between management and staff members. The system’s survey function enabled project managers to obtain feedback from workers concerning their needs to effectively do their job no matter where they are.

As well, Hibob decided to provide businesses with an alternative way to recreate water cooler chatting. Now, Hibob has Clubs that staff join to share their thoughts, anonymous chats to state what they don’t like, and Shoutouts to announce company-wide messages regarding promotions, personal info, new team members, and so forth.

So, can you come up with your version of the virtual water cooler chat? Think about it.

Onboarding and enablement of a remote/distributed team

Even if your team is working remotely, this does not mean that the hiring has stopped. And onboarding those who just got a job can be difficult if you don’t have a chance to communicate face-to-face. Additionally, you still need to implement new tools, refine work processes, and integrate all these changes into the employee’s workflow.

The problem is that most employers present updates in the form of online presentations, LMS courses, or during video conferences, and workers tend to forget all the information right after they’ve heard it. So, there is a need for software that deals with training and enablement. 

One of the most successful SaaS startups addressing this challenge is Spekit, a digital adoption and enablement platform that businesses may use to train, communicate changes, conduct onboarding, and reinforce knowledge for their teams without leaving the apps they use. 

Spekit has an integrated approach that makes training, documentation, and enablement resources automatically appear contextually directly in a place your worker needs. For example, when an employee is trying to create a sales opportunity in Salesforce, they can hover over the Spekit icon to watch a quick tutorial on how and when to create an opportunity.

Lack of office routine

When you work in an office, everything is quite clear: you come at 9 o'clock, and leave at 6 (in case you have a typical working day). This is not the case with remote work. When nobody is managing your time but yourself, it may be difficult to get focused, keep away from distractions, and consistently manage your work-life balance. You can, of course, opt for a coworking space or work from a cafe, but you still have to record all your activities and share the progress with colleagues.

For that reason, there is a need for a tool that can help organize the day, track activities, and share the progress with a team. The thing is, such a tool should be extremely intuitive and easy to use so that it doesn’t take additional time to manage it.

Tymewise is a time tracking tool designed by Eleken’s team. It perfectly targets freelancers and small agencies as Tymewise has all the needed functionality and at the same time is super user-friendly and transparent. You can track your time, get informative reports, manage your teams and projects, and this all is possible without wasting time figuring out how to use the app.

Team collaboration

Getting together for a brainstorming session, exchanging ideas, and sharing opinions about different issues is very challenging for a remote team. Employees can't just drop in the boss's office to quickly present an interesting thought, there's often a delay between messages because of online communication and it all may lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. Companies need advanced solutions for remote team collaboration.

The software that solves the issue with brainstorming sessions great is Miro. It looks like a virtual whiteboard with everything needed: sticky notes, mapping diagrams, ready-made templates. People like Miro as it manages to closely replicate the real experience and keep it engaging.

While Miro helps with brainstorming, another great app that allows real-time interactions is Tandem. It is a remote work app that shows what each team is working on right now and lets users join in one click (with a shared cursor). To feel a better connection, users can communicate in minimal voice/video calls.

But still, even with such great products as Tandem and Miro, remote collaboration tools are not perfect. For example, all digital means of communication miss body language, which causes misinterpretations, affects productivity, and innovation. So, there is still a place for new remote collaboration solutions.

Document collaboration

While we’ve just mentioned the problem of team collaboration, as a part of it, we also want to highlight a not less important issue of interaction with documents.  

The most common problem that companies face is that they deal with documents, tasks, internal communication, and so on, all in different tools that are not aligned. As a result, to get feedback on a document an employee has to create a draft in Google Docs, copy and paste its URL in a messenger, mention colleagues they want to receive the feedback from (oh, and don’t forget to share access to that draft), change the task progress in a project management tool, mention those colleagues who didn’t respond once again, make edits, and do several more steps until the final document is edited and approved. 

As a result, the process is too long and too complicated. 

Almanac, a collaborative documentation software for distributed teams understood that while apps like Google Docs or Microsoft Word are great for editing, they are terrible at helping you manage your work. People have the information scattered across emails, chats, to-do lists, and so forth making collaboration not simple at all. 

With Almanac users can not only edit their documents but also review, approve, merge, view history, and organize their company information in a way that is convenient for them. In the end, you receive the high-quality experience of Google Docs, empowered by the best features from project management software.

Payroll management for distributed teams

In our new reality, even large companies that used to be solely office-oriented don’t mind hiring remote first-class talents. At the same time, businesses allow their workers to move to other cities, countries, and even continents. This means that employers have to deal with taxes, different costs of living, contract work vs full-time nuances, and so forth.

For that reason, there is a need for a tool that focuses on managing payrolls of distributed teams that aren’t located in physical offices. 

One of such platforms is Papayaglobal. It works perfectly for distributed teams as it guarantees correct and on-time payment in more than 160 countries, payroll will comply with all local labor laws and tax codes, and access to a great support team with in-house experts, and in-country partners.

Meetings scheduling

In the office, if you need to find out something from a colleague, you go and ask them, and when you are to meet a new client/conduct an interview with a new candidate, you can invite them to visit you physically. At a distance, such processes are not that simple.

Calling your teammates each time you need advice is a solution, but calls must be agreed upon in advance (at least an hour). Contacting a person without warning them is accepted only in case of a threat to life or other great danger. Adding the fact that, perhaps, many companies now have personnel who are scattered across different time zones and locations is making scheduling appointments very difficult.

That’s why businesses are looking for a tool that can help them get rid of email mess, numerous messages, back-and-forth phone calls, and finding one available time in everyone’s calendar. 

Commanddot is a cloud tool that allows you to quickly and easily book meetings from where you work. It runs in Google Chrome and uses the information from your calendars to coordinate meetings in Gmail, Slack, Linkedin, and more. That is, CommandDot shows if you are available, but doesn’t require you to check the calendar, or memorize any additional information.

Holding events

With the beginning of COVID-19, all events went virtual. And hosting online conferences is not a piece of cake. First of all, people are fed up with spending all day in front of their screens, and can’t hold their attention for a long time. Additionally, it’s very challenging to come up with ideas on how to make such an event both useful and engaging. Finally, there aren't many event-holding solutions on the market that allow hosting high-quality large-scale events. 

Hopin is one of the companies that managed to identify this gap and created a great tool for hosting virtual events starting from one-on-one meetings and ending with the 50,000-person annual conference.

Participants can enjoy a speaker on the main stage, visit a workshop session, check out digital exposition or have an individual meeting with other guests within a particular event. One of the greatest benefits of this platform is its modern, customizable, and extremely easy-to-use interface.

Managing hybrid workplaces

As we are talking about work from home future, we see the tendency that fully remote work evolves into a hybrid: workers can stay at home and attend office when they need to meet and collaborate with colleagues. So, how about generating a startup idea for this work model?

That’s what Envoy did. Envoy is an office visitors registration system based in San Francisco that started to expand with the beginning of COVID-19. Now it’s a desk-reservation system that helps employees find places to collaborate with each other so that they can get their work done smoothly and safely while being in the office. 

It gives companies the flexibility to scale up and down depending on changing capacity requirements. Businesses can understand how many employees are coming in and out of the office, so they can keep them safely apart.

Coming up with an interesting remote tool idea in your head is only the first little step. Next, you will probably be tormented by numerous doubts. So, let’s briefly talk about major fears you as an aspiring SaaS idea seeker might have.

What is going on in the remote-work tooling industry?

Tools for SaaS startups are seeing great acceleration today because of the remote-work boom brought by Covid-19. With so many types of SaaS software existing today, no wonder that there are many willing to snatch a piece from this trendy industry. 

Here are three popular questions that will help you better understand if it’s worthy to start a business in this field.

Isn’t the market oversaturated with narrow-focused WFH solutions?

Fast Company forecasts that RW applications are going to become a norm, even for onsite workers. For example, mobile work tools and VR conferencing will certainly end up being the favored type of interaction, even over in-person meetings. AI will likely play a significant role in managing remote staff as well.

Therefore, from a corporate buyer perspective, businesses are seeing a solid need for single-purpose RW apps, first-rate in their category.

In case companies start returning to offices, won’t they stop using their remote software?

According to a survey conducted by Inspired, only 12% of employees would like to continue working as they did before the pandemic. Such statistics prove that remote software is going to stay with us for longer. 

And those who are still afraid that their product may become useless in a post-COVID environment should take care that it integrates into the on-premise work model as well.

What about RW startups economics in comparison to a common SaaS startup?

The answer to this question will differ depending on the issue and target audience that some specific RW tool deals with. We've noticed that RW products that have hyper-specialization on a specific use case and clearly-defined potential target users often have better unit economic benchmarks of the business than other startups.

To sum up, remote-tooling startup economics are at least at the same level as thor SaaS peers. 

How to make sure my work-from-home startup idea will pop and win?

Depending on the industry, the needs of remote staff will differ. And there may be far more remote working startup ideas that cope with a variety of issues except those we’ve discussed in this article. But the question is: if there are so many existing tools, and many of them have almost identical feature sets, how can one product break out and win?

Well, except for learning about SaaS trends, it’s also important to define what unique value proposition your product is going to offer and make sure your customers experience it as quickly as possible.

Already have a well-thought-out product idea? At Eleken, we can help you study your users and put a lot of thought into building design elements that communicate your product's value in a way that appeals to your customers. Contact us for further consultation.