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I’ve seen a lot of different “roadmaps” for SaaS products lately. Some of them are good guides for specific questions. Some are simply misleading or poorly focused. But only a few of us are talking about the guiding thoughts behind a realistic roadmap that are critical to success.

When you develop products in a repeatable, production fashion, you have to step back occasionally and take the long view so you can properly discuss the process with clients. We’ve been involved in that exercise recently and I thought it might be useful to share the what and why of our approach to software development for online products.

Our move down the Lean and Agile road is not an accident. It is our core belief that customers will be more successful if they and their products and business processes are also Lean and Agile. We’re not alone in that thinking.

When I wrote the recent article “SaaS: 10 Trends for 2010″ I used the phrase “Best Case SaaS.” I realized from feedback and some thinking afterward though that many people don’t share my vision of what it is.

I’ve noticed there are broadly two camps when it comes to developing new services for the Internet: Those entrepreneurs that feel they must do everything themselves regardless of the hurdles they face and those that want to focus on their core expertise and leverage outside services where possible.

SaaS is not a “one-size-fits-all” business. There are many options now for platforms and services you can use and the number is increasing every day. A lot of the information available is laden with marketing hype. How do you make the right decisions?

In Part 1 of this list we covered the first five points – so if you haven’t read that already, I encourage you to go and read that first. For everyone else – here’s the remaining five points in my hit parade.

This is the first article in a four part series I’ve planned about “The Long Tail” and services (SaaS, On-Demand, etc) on the Internet.

If you have read anything at all about marketing for the web in the last few years, it is hard to imagine you might not have also heard the term, “The Long Tail.” The idea has a long history with statisticians, but the term we use dates back to 2004 when Chris Anderson wrote a magazine article in Wired describing the concepts. He also wrote a best selling book on concept, which has been recently updated. But, judging from many of the articles which use the term, I don’t blame you if you’re not sure what it is all about.

This is a tough time to be starting a business, but many people in technology or with deep industry experience who have been recently laid off are doing just that. Companies with existing product lines are facing tough choices too. Can you afford to sit on your hands while your sales dwindle? So let’s imagine you’re one of those folks…

We’ve felt it – everybody has. The “credit-crunch,” the “downturn,” or whatever you want to call it. The impact of this latest wave of economic news is being felt globally. A lot of companies, small and large, have put their plans “on hold” indefinitely.