There are many cloud services on the Internet these days. You’ll likely be a regular user of some of them, such as Dropbox or Amazon AWS. According to Statista, the cloud computing market is worth around $141 billion, making it a very lucrative niche.
You’re likely reading this because you’ve got a great idea for a cloud-based service that you’d like to offer. Before you start packaging your service for retail sale, you must look at these hints and tips:
Decide on your subscription model
Virtually all cloud-based services offer customers a variety of different subscription models. The first thing you should do is decide which subscription options you’re going to offer, and how much you’re going to charge.
You may wish to consider introductory bonuses (for example, a 30-day, no-obligation free trial). Affiliate rewards, such as discounts for inviting people to use your service, are another option to consider as part of your subscription model.
Get your infrastructure built and managed
The code behind your cloud service might be ready to roll-out, but have you put any thought into how you will host it? If the answer’s no, you need to organize your infrastructure and have it managed by a team of IT support professionals.
It’s worth considering a scalable server cluster so that you can keep your startup costs low and increase capacity as your service grows. The last thing you want to do is make yourself bankrupt before you even set up your new cloud service.
Leverage partnerships with distributors and vendors
Aside from IT support, you’ll likely need to use a lot of help with things like marketing, accounting, payment processing, etc. No person is an island, so it makes sense for you to forge partnerships with distributors and vendors to help your cloud service.
It’s more cost-effective to pay experts to deal with niche areas of your service, while you concentrate on your core offering. Otherwise, your service’s growth rate could get adversely affected.
Test your service with a closed group of users
It’s vital that you test your service with a group of people from your target audience. You could offer them free access to your service during testing, and a lifetime discount when it goes live.
There are numerous reasons for having a group of testers on board. For a start, they’ll identify any bugs or issues that need fixing. Secondly, they will help you improve your service by making suggestions. And, third, you’ll gauge the usefulness of your concept.
The people that you choose might be friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. Or, you could open up testing to a fixed number of people, and they can “invite” others to use the service.
Final thoughts
As you can see, there are a few things you need to think about before you launch your cloud-based service concept. It’s vital that you take the time to prepare the foundations for your service, so that your live offering becomes an instant success.