This article is mainly based on my story on how I created a Complete SaaS Application in Python and Django. “I”, yes you heard right, I am a solo-developer. It took 2 months to complete this project.

The beginning of it all

I am a Software Developer during the day, a YouTube teacher and a YouTube content creator during the weekends, and a serial entrepreneur at night.

I develop custom softwares for my clients. These ranges from a simple static website to more complicated, dynamic web application or cloud software.

In the past, a client of mine requested for a CRM. They wanted me to custom build it for their own company and let them host it on their own cloud. They desired this CRM solution so that they won’t have to store their information in a platform that is based on the cloud.

After conducting a well research, I decided to try out corteza. Installing this software in your own server was easy as it was still new. My client used this platform for a while then we started to encounter some problems as time goes by. We had the following problems:

• The development team of this software kept on changing the software, causing the package we have installed to break down and stopped working completely. All the data within the software was lost.
• Troubleshooting was a nightmare. If certain features had issues, I couldn’t fix them since I had no access to their code.
• When my client encounter some problems and asking for my assistance, I couldn’t do anything except to tell them to just wait until the software is updated by their developers.

My client lost over 2000 CRM records. This made me to want to develop my own CRM.

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How I decided on technology to use – SaaS Application

I wanted to push this CRM development as fast as I could. I decided to work with Python Django web development framework. Everything that I do and teach on my YouTube channel is basically based on Python Django.

Why Django Was the Chosen One

• Django is considered to be what we call a “batteries included” is what Django is considered to be. This simply means that a lot of coding comes pre-built within, such as app security, checks, support libraries, Object Relationship Mapper etc. Well this means an app that could take 4-6 months to build when using another platform can be built within a month on Django.
• Python – Django integrates seamlessly with python libraries. Python is well known for data processing, analytics, visualisations etc. The integration of AI and ML elements is seamless in to an app developed in Django because it is already in python.
• Reusability – A common feature that comes Django everything. The apps plug in is good in a way that you can reuse the app anywhere with no complications.
• Scalabilty & Efficiency – The scaling of a Python development framework is good and can stand large datasets. Therefore if you have desires of building a unicorn, this is a good bet.

There are a lot of reasons to why using Python Django is good but what really inspired me was the ability to develop a high standard application with Django.

It took 2 months to build this Skhokho SaaS Application.

Skhokho SaaS Application Features

HR Management App

This feature is considered to be the base of the entire application. Skhokho is built to be a joint tool with organisations, therefore a user profile is required. The idea is that an organisation will create one account and invite all their employees as users or team members of the company.

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The HR app handles the employee onboarding, leave management, team task management, payroll and creating payslips.

Objective Key Result – OKR App

I added this feature after the first release of the software. A client feedback motivated me to feature this app. Furthermore, the client requested a goal setting tool, more like a manager-task process.

Before we added the OKR, some of the users were happy with the manager assigning tasks to their team members; however, one suggestion they made was that the tasks should have some sort of purpose or goal so that the team members can understand what they are all trying to accomplish.

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Multinational companies commonly use OKR method to measure success. For more information on OKR, check out our previous article?: Using OKRs.

Sales and CRM

The main purpose for building Skhokho was to help our client with a CRM for their business. We discovered that these current CRM platforms are expensive and do not support small business. They include features that other businesses do not use.

Nonetheless, our main objective was to create something simple and easy to use, something like a “all-in-one” platform that covers the basic features and make it affordable.

Project Management App

Yes this platform has a project management tool with purpose.

Accounting App

Invoicing, quotes, expenses, products and services — cash flow, however, the best part is that it is all integrated. Actual projects in the project app have invoices attached to each project. So project app and payrolls expenses automatically appear in your cash flow.

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Meeting Management Integration

I have clear understanding of meetings since I have worked in corporate for more than 15 years. However, even after a good 15 years we were still facing these problems:

• No one can recall what was discussed in a previous meeting.
• We find it hard to agree on certain actions we discussed previously.
• Finding minutes for a meeting that took place 6 months ago is a nightmare.
• Relying on emails and calendars to recall when we had these meetings and who attended.
• Relying on Zoom recordings for minutes of the meeting assuming that you can retrieve those recordings once the meeting is over.

When building skhokho, we decided to include basic meeting management. The meeting functionality is required within:

1. Sales and CRM: used to record meetings with potential clients and leads.
2. Project Management App: used to record meetings held for the project.

Thereafter we created a meeting management system because companies have general meetings. The meeting app offers the following:

• Schedule meetings, create a meeting record, 
• ability to invite members, 
• allow for minutes to be taken as action points, 
• send meeting invites to registered attendees with a click of a button and
• email out minutes of the meeting.

Front-End Design

I had a hard time desigining the fron-end. I combined many frront-end options. Even after the scrapping, I was not quite happy with the colors and icons. So I started from scratch again until I was satisfied. The illustrations, icons, colours, everything was selected to stand out and impress our users.

Your Views

Your thoughts are welcome, leave a comment below:

Check out our Product Hunt ship page here: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/skhokho-2

So you will know when we finally get to launch on Product Hunt — very soon.

Or give it a try — https://skhokho.io