A Bit of SaaS Weekly: Itching to Build
This is a weekly newsletter on the Software as a Service world. Learning, building, and shipping. Written by Ethan Mick.
I don’t miss deadlines. I just change the scope.
-- Victor
The Best Bits
- Another onboarding library.
- Google Calendar has built-in appointment scheduling.
- Speaking of which, here's another appointment scheduler SaaS. If you thought your idea was in a crowded field, well... there is always room for one more.
- Here's a guide to running Llama 2 locally.
Passkeys. Passwords, without passwords.
I've built a lot of SaaS apps, and one of the first things you need to tackle is adding authentication. It's a foundational part of the data model, and because you want the application to be multi-tenant from the start, all of your data needs to be separated by a tenant.
So, you dutifully implement authorization so you can ensure your users only see their own data. You might use Auth0, Next Auth, or Supabase, but one way or another, you have your login screen and ask the user for a password.
Well, maybe not a password. You can use other services as your identity provider (such as Google, or GitHub), and then the user logs in with their account there. With their password.
What if you didn't need a password?
What if you could log in with something else secure?
That's the idea behind passkeys.
Instead of having the user create a password for your site (best case, long, random, unique, secure. Worst case, it's password123 and the same as their bank password), the user's device creates a secure encryption token and uses that to authenticate.
The power here is that the user will authenticate on their device using either their PIN, fingerprint, or FaceID. That will allow them to prove they are who they say, and the resulting communication to the service happens automatically.
The trick here, of course, is in making sure these passkeys sync between devices. Apple and Google both have solutions for their devices to sync the keys securely so you can create an account on your iPhone and then sign in on your Mac.
This is on my to-do list to implement, so you'll get some lessons on how to build this!
Tech Tip
If you are interested in implementing passkeys, you can take a look at the official guide here: https://www.passkeys.com/guides
Cloud Chronicles
- YouTube Subscribers: 1,791 (+60 in the last 7 days)
- Newsletter Members: 426 (+25 in the last 7 days)
This past week I was officially accepted into the YouTube partner program! That means I have over 1,000 subscribers and over 4,000 public watch hours. I can now earn revenue from my YouTube videos!
It's a huge milestone for me, and I'm very excited to have made it. I don't think the money coming from YouTube is going to be meaningful for a long time, but the idea that my content will slowly make money is fantastic.
I'm taking a good look at my entire business and will see where I want to focus for the second half of the year. Rest assured, I'll still make content, but I need to make sure the amount of time I spend on it aligns with its value to me at the moment.
Last Byte
- Does anyone use Stack Overflow anymore?
- What's it like to be married to a dying man?
- Check out this cool retro terminal.