Why SaaS Projects With “New” Or “Next” In The Name Are Likely To Fail
Replacing useful software is hard. Naming things is hard. Somehow naming projects to replace software seems easy.
These names aren’t “easy”, they are a sign that your project is poorly thought out and likely doomed. This is especially true in SaaS where your customers are paying for this generation.
New [X] is a sign that your project is inward looking and hasn’t considered your customer’s needs. Do they need “New” or do they need specific features?
New [X] invites scope creep: new idea + new [x] = features in new [x]. Does the new idea fit in with the purpose of New [X]? Well, it’s new!
New [X] turns up the pressure on the release. It’s new! We couldn’t ship the features to customers incrementally, we have to do a grand reveal and make a splash!
It is completely fine to replace useful software with a better design and new technology. Even if you do it iteratively, the end goal is a new version of the same system. And it turns out that there is a simple naming system you can use!
