Modern SaaS toolstack: The ultimate list of delightful tools every modern B2B SaaS needs in 2024
Modern teams use tools that are flexible, integrated and have top-notch UX & UI.
Flexible: They have job-specific built-in features, but make it very easy to customize their product to fit your needs and build custom workflows, ideally without code.
Integrated: Modern teams prefer integrating multiple top-notch tools together, instead of buying the “all-in-one” traditional software. Data and actions should easily flow from one tool to another.
Top-notch UX & UI: Products that simply "solve the problem" but with a poor UX and UI don't cut it anymore. People expect top-tier experiences and a high level of polish, intuitiveness and overall craft.
We've compiled a list of modern tools, building specifically for B2B SaaS, matching at least 2 criteria mentioned above.
Here it is.
Attio as CRM
Last year, we churned from Hubspot for Attio.
Attio comes with a great Segment integration that lets us easily sync user data & in-app usage metrics to our CRM. This is particularly useful when you need to create contact lists based on activation milestones, billing plans or MRR.
Attio’s flexibility lets you easily create custom objects and properties. No need to be a CRM expert or hire consultants, Attio’s power lies in the accessibility of its flexible data model.
Traditional CRMs often come bloated with built-in objects & properties that don't fit your growth stage, nor the way you'd like to work. Attio has a greatly documented API and also offer a Make module. This lets you easily create custom automations with external tools, but they also have an "automation feature for internal workflows.
Cherry on the cake, their UI & UX make it delightful to use. Easy recommendation for all B2B SaaS.
Cycle as customer feedback hub
Customer insights are a determining factor in your company’s success. They help your understand customer problems, infuse your product sense, and might even spark that idea that will change everything.
The problem is, you’ll get a lot of them, making it hard to process it all and extract the signal from the noise.
That’s where Cycle comes in. Cycle plugs on all of your feedback sources (Slack channels, NPS surveys, user interview calls, support tickets, …), extracts insights with AI, and gives you advanced dashboard with patterns & trends across your customer data. Cycle then helps you close the loop with stakeholders whenever you ship something.
If you’re very early stage, start with a simple Notion database. But once you get overwhelmed with feedback from 2+ sources, or feel you’re missing critical insights, switch to Cycle to get your feedback data under control and process it on autopilot.
Linear for issue tracking
Linear is widely popular among engineering teams looking for a sleek & modern issue tracking tool. It’s optimized for speed and efficiency, so you can create tasks in seconds, discuss issues in context, and breeze through your work.
Linear helps you align your team around a unified product timeline. Plan, manage, and track all product initiatives with their visual planning tools.
If you need an extra layer to manage incoming feedback before turning them into Linear issues, Cycle is your best friend. With its two-way sync, Cycle ensures seamless product discovery on top of Linear, making your workflow from discovery to delivery smooth and efficient.
Loops for email marketing & transactional emails
We've moved our email marketing to Loops. It integrates with Segment so you can trigger email series & campaigns based on in-app user behaviour. Email series are typically sold as an "add-on" in traditional emailing products.
Loops' Notion-like email editor is also more user-friendly than the alternatives we've tried. They support both transactional & marketing emails.
Overall, the team is doing a great job at focusing on SaaS specific features, which makes me confident it will only get more powerful & tailored to our specific needs.
June for product analytics
Tracking how people use your product should be implemented very early in your startup journey. June is a product analytics tool focused on simplifying behaviour tracking & analysis. They make it really easy to track core metrics like activation, retention, power users, feature adoption, etc.
If you're using Google analytics as your primary metrics product, you're doing it wrong. – Michael Siebel (YC)
Integration-wise, June integrates with Attio to bring usage data into your CRM. They also have a handy Slack integration that enriches inbound signups and alerts you for qualified signups. You can also opt-in for a weekly report. Even tough they have their own SDK, June also developed a Segment integration.
Figma for design
You've been living under a rock if your product & design teams aren't using Figma.
Figma helps design and development teams build great products in a collaborative way. It's browser-based design editor and real-time collaboration features make it a breeze to get everyone on the same page.
Whether its for simple mockups, wire framing or pixel-perfect designs, Figma has you covered. Product teams love embedding Figma designs in their product requirement documents (PRDs) in Cycle. It helps them quickly find the right Figma file, adapt the PRD if needed, review UX/UI issues and collaborate in real-time or asynchronously.
Jitter for animations
Animations serve many purposes in product. Showcase a newly shipped feature, explain something in-app, product marketing or add joyful animations in your product.
Previously team would turn to Adobe After Effects for this, but you'd face a pretty steep learning curve to get a basic animation done. Jitter makes this pretty easy and pleasant to do. We've also stumbled on Rive which seemed very promising too.
Notion as wiki
There are countless use cases Notion covers. Content calendars, product roadmaps, documentation, websites, meeting notes, task management, it's endless. There are two things that make Notion delightful to use and powerful:
- Everything is drag and drop — images, toggles, to-do’s, even embedded databases.
- Their rich markdown editor makes it super fast & easy to jot down notes in a structured way. Notion's "/" command has become a habit and almost an expectation I have from text editors in other tools.
Notion's AI is one of the best out there. They embed your entire company wiki and can even connect to Slack & Google Drive, which you can later query in natural language.
If you're still early in your startup journey, Notion databases are a good place to host your first product roadmap and couple of user research interview notes. Once your volume of feedback starts getting out of hand and you're missing out on customer insights, consider switching to Cycle to stay on top of things. You'll get similar vibes to Notion but with job-specific features for product teams.
Pylon for customer support
B2B relationships are moving to a fleet of scattered channels. Customer communication now happens through Slack connect channels, email, in-app chats, community forum, you name it. It quickly gets overwhelming.
That’s where Pylon comes in. Pylon is a modern and unified support system for B2B. It seamlessly integrates with all your support channels so you can focus on keeping your customers happy.
Your team can easily assign issues, set SLAs, and automate workflows, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. Plus, Pylon gives you analytics so you’ll have clear insights into your support performance, helping you meet and exceed your SLA goals.
Pylon is the ultimate tool for B2B teams looking to streamline their support process and boost customer satisfaction.
That's a wrap!
We're always on the lookout for great B2B SaaS tooling. Reach out if you think your product qualifies for this list and we'll be in touch.