150+ Questions to Assess the Health of your SaaS product
Here's a resource that helps you ask the right questions around product, people, process, metrics, and go-to-market strategy for your SaaS product.
A fractional Chief Product Officer recently asked me on LinkedIn whether I had a process to evaluate SaaS products and companies:
The context is that I occasionally consulted B2B SaaS product teams to help them identify areas for improvement and opportunities for growth.
The first few days of such engagements were always dedicated to asking a bunch of targeted questions to the founders and their teams to learn more about the state of the product, process, and people.
But soon, I realized that I sorely lacked structure and an organized process.
I would often waste time retyping the same questions repeatedly with each team. I also kept missing key questions earlier in the engagement that I’d remember much later.
To fix this problem, I started compiling a list of diligence questions on a spreadsheet in late 2023. Now, it’s a collection of all the questions I typically use to assess the health of a SaaS product, along with certain notes on what to look out for.
Click here to access the question bank spreadsheet.
Alternatively, you can find the PDF here:
Here are some quick FAQs on this resource:
Who is this diligence checklist for?
This list has applications for:
New SaaS Product leaders who want to find areas to focus on.
Fractional CPOs who want to conduct a complete audit.
VCs who want to vet potential investments.
How do you use this resource?
Make a copy of the question list.
If you’re a founder or product leader, select questions that apply to you. Answer them truthfully and highlight rows that need immediate attention. Schedule a call with the team to discuss the key areas together.
If you’re a Fractional CPO or VC, copy over applicable questions on a separate sheet. Send it as a questionnaire to the team in question. Once you get the responses back, use the “what to look for” notes to assess the response quality. Highlight green and red flags as you go along to share with partners.
What type of products is this for?
While this could be used for products of any stage, I’ve personally applied them on scaleups or products with some degree of PMF. There are a few questions in there that won’t be suitable for 0 to 1.
What else should I keep in mind?
Even though I've added some guidance on "what to look out for" when assessing each question's response, these shouldn't be used as hard rules.
The checklist is meant to provide directional guidance, not rigid benchmarks. Use your judgment based on the company's stage.
Every product and market is different. Allow for variability based on factors like target users, industry, regs, etc.
Adapt the checklist to the unique needs of B2B vs. consumer products, mobile vs. web apps, and so on.
Moreover, this should offer a great starting point. However, you might still need to add some product-specific questions.
Hope this helps,
Aatir
Amazing, so much value.
Thank you for sharing
Thank you for sharing it. Love it!