Early B2B SaaS without features like SSO, OAuth login, etc.?

Question

Hi. I have been using email login and admin users can invite their colleagues by email address.Of course, many established companies offer SSO, ability to login using Google, Apple, other oauth.I asked around to my test users and a few potential users and they mentioned email is fine. In my own experience as a SWE I used many softwares at work which used just email login. However, many more offered a bunch more.Will it be fine to open it up to broader audience without all these things?

admissionsguy · Accepted Answer

In my experience, SSO is a requirement for some corporate clients. So depends on who you are selling to (individual employees or orgs who will have a number of their employees use the software). For example, if you sell a quoting tool to a department, which will then be used by their salespeople, SSO requirement is a possibility. If it's a small app that the CEO will use to schedule posts on Linkedin, then there is no need.
In my experience, login using Google, Apple is a convenience feature that may increase conversion rate if the product is sold to individuals, but is not essential.
Your experience may vary.

grinich · Answer

This is exactly what we built WorkOS for.[0]. I’m the founder and we launched on HN a few years ago.[1]
Our auth service is free up to 1,000,000 users. We charge for enterprise features. Send me a note if you’d like to chat![2]
[0] https://workos.com/user-management
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22607402
[2] mg@workos.com or https://x.com/grinich

mvkel · Answer

Your potential customers are the ones to ask. The opinions here will be varied, and unhelpful.Unless your target market is HN folks. If it is, you're absolutely in the right place and ignore everything I said.

codegeek · Answer

SSO has various levels. You can do a "Login/Signup with Google" using any of the popular frameworks in a day or so. On the other hand, if you need to do full Enterprise level SSO (SAML, Audits, SCIM etc etc), you have more work to do.Look at it this way. If your product solves a real problem for your potential customer, they wouldn't care about how to signup for it. Not until they tell you that SSO is a must. Until then, don't sweat it and keep going.

smt88 · Answer

It's so cheap to use a SaaS auth provider like Auth0 or Clerk.dev that you might as well implement one of them. It should take less than a day.

bigfatkitten · Answer

I wouldn't want to build and run my own auth system at the expensive of building features that my customers want.For many decently sized (ie high AAR) business customers, particularly those in regulated industries, SSO is a non-negotiable requirement anyway.

saluki · Answer

What framework are you using?SSO is a solved problem in most frameworks and should be easy to implement quickly.Rails or Laravel it's quick to implement SSO for various flavors.

dyeje · Answer

If it&rsquo;s a requirement to close a customer, they&rsquo;ll tell you. Just keeping going with what you have until it blocks a deal you want to close enough to implement it.

sabbaticaldev · Answer

That&rsquo;s small decision that should not take more than a few minutes to decide and try. It&rsquo;s the kind of thing people do to avoid doing the real work needed

Early B2B SaaS without features like SSO, OAuth login, etc.?

Your potential customers are the ones to ask. The opinions here will be varied, and unhelpful.
Unless your target market is HN folks. If it is, you're absolutely in the right place and ignore everything I said.

It's so cheap to use a SaaS auth provider like Auth0 or Clerk.dev that you might as well implement one of them. It should take less than a day.

I wouldn't want to build and run my own auth system at the expensive of building features that my customers want.
For many decently sized (ie high AAR) business customers, particularly those in regulated industries, SSO is a non-negotiable requirement anyway.

What framework are you using?
SSO is a solved problem in most frameworks and should be easy to implement quickly.
Rails or Laravel it's quick to implement SSO for various flavors.

If it’s a requirement to close a customer, they’ll tell you. Just keeping going with what you have until it blocks a deal you want to close enough to implement it.

That’s small decision that should not take more than a few minutes to decide and try. It’s the kind of thing people do to avoid doing the real work needed