TechCrunch+ Roundup: SaaS architecture, Kimberly Bryant’s next move, managing cloud security

“Building a plane in midair” is one of my favorite startup clichés. It’s something Silicon Valley visionaries love to say, but it has little to do with the iterative work of developing software.

Well-designed SaaS architecture makes every company more maneuverable when it comes to pricing, scaling, and onboarding new customers, according to Ratnesh Singh Parihar of Talentica Software.

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Before developers get to work, he says three questions should determine which SaaS architecture you select:

• How would the customers pay?
• For what services (computation and values) would the customers pay?
• How will the usage be measured and invoices be created for the customers?

In this TC+ post, Parihar shares a framework for selecting “the right SaaS type for your product,” along with multiple examples and use cases.

Choose wisely — boards tend to hate it when a refactor puts product development on hold!

Thanks for reading,

Walter Thompson
Editorial Manager, TechCrunch+

Strengthening security in a multi-SaaS cloud environment

Managing security across multiple SaaS cloud deployments has an element of risk: A lot can go wrong when using multiple APIs and interfaces to manage data without configuration standards.

“To overcome these challenges, automation and detection have become a crucial piece of the puzzle, and you should be asking about these capabilities,” advises Steven Tamm, a technology adviser to Spin.AI and former Salesforce CTO.

VC Office Hours: Black Girls Code founder Kimberly Bryant starts a new chapter

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin

Nearly a year ago, the board of the nonprofit Black Girls Code fired the group’s founder and CEO, Kimberly Bryant.

Although that “situation is still developing,” Dominic-Madori Davis interviewed Bryant about her next move: launching an accelerator in her hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, “under the umbrella of her newly launched investment firm, Ascend Ventures.”

How to succeed in today’s grocery delivery market

Misfits Market CEO Abhi Ramesh. Image Credits: Misfits Market

Grocery delivery services were in hot demand when the pandemic began, but in a post-vaccine era, many companies have scaled back operations as they attempt to ride out the downturn.

“One of the strategic mistakes folks in this category made was they assumed that the growth rate and demand in 2020 and 2021 would stay for the next three, four or five years,” said Abhi Ramesh, founder and CEO of Misfits Market.

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Deal Dive: Cutting through the noise in a category clouded by catastrophic failure

Vital Bio hopes it can succeed where past blood testing startups like Theranos failed. Image Credits: Getty Images

Did the Theranos fraud case cast a shadow over other health tech startups hoping to disrupt traditional laboratory services?

Toronto-based Vital Bio recently unveiled a device that performs 50 blood tests and returns results in 20 minutes, reports Rebecca Szkutak, who interviewed co-founder and CEO Vasu Nadella.

“We knew we didn’t want to come out without really good data,” he said. “We didn’t want to even try to ask for credit before we felt that we had something worth showing off that is far enough along.”