Hi HN! I’m the founder of WorkOS (https://workos.com)
We provide a developer API for making your app enterprise-ready. You can quickly add features including SSO/SAML, Director Sync (SCIM), Audit Logs, and more.
WorkOS is “Plaid for enterprise IT systems.”
I learned about these enterprise requirements the hard way. Previously, I founded Nylas where we built an email app called Nylas Mail. We couldn’t monetize that app and shut it down (RIP) and the main reason was that we couldn’t sell it to enterprise because it was missing features.
I fully appreciate how difficult this is to do, but I think it would be immensely useful if WorkOS provided the docs that I (the SAML SP, your customer) provide to my customers who are setting up SAML (as an IdP) on their end.
One of the biggest pain points I've experienced with SAML is that people come to me asking for help, but only understanding their IdP; the only IdP I know how to use is Okta, and I don't have access to their IdP to test with.
I'd love it if WorkOS could give me documentation that I can give to my customers about how they can set up Okta/Azure ADFS/whatever with my product. I can edit those docs to account for idiosyncratic stuff my product does (e.g. requiring a particular SAML user attribute or format for user IDs).
Aside: the support burden of SAML is a big part of why the sso.tax exists. Nobody on the SP or IdP end knows how to set this stuff up!
Yep we're already looking at doing this with docs. :)
One thing to help with the SAML support is WorkOS.js. It's essentially an embeddable configuration flow, so you don't need to build the UI to collect x.509 certs, generate the ACS URL, etc. Similar architecture to "Plaid Link" so users never leave your app.
Yeah this is really cool! To your point about WorkOS.js -- how would a customer know where to find their SAML metadata? Some of this can be done inline in WorkOS.js, of course.
But no amount of inline docs in WorkOS.js's UI is going to get around the high-level guidance docs, both for your customers ("where do I even start") and your customers' customers ("how do I fit my IdP peg into your SP round hole").
Ah yeah I'm talking about two different things. The docs for getting SAML config would be on a separate public site.
WorkOS.js is for the IT admin to configure their SSO/SAML integration.
With both of these things, you can make SAML fully self-serve and include it in your base tier, which drives adoption and retention in bigger companies.
Congrats on the launch, Michael. Been experiencing the same - after conducting demos of our application, we've been told that we aren't enterprise-ready and so we've gone away to figure out what that looks like. I've got extensive experience in the enterprise space having worked in banking tech for a few years so happy to help. Currently, we're building an AI performance management platform for enterprises and so could leverage WorkOS to accelerate our go-to-market. How do you compare to Replicated (https://www.replicated.com/)?
Replicated helps developers ship an on-prem version of their product, like GitHub Enterprise.
WorkOS helps developers add features to make their app enterprise-ready. We provide an API to integrate with cloud services like Okta, Azure AD, G Suite, and more.
Very minor, really, but did you consider tiers something like Developer/Startup/Corporate, rather than Free/Developer/Corporate?
I just think surely every user (of yours) is a de facto developer, and really if that's all they are they only need the 'Free' tier until they start selling something (i.e. it's a business of some kind) and need the support.
We're primarily targeted at developers but I found there's a lot of other people who care about enterprise features. For example, WorkOS allows a Head of Product to focus entirely on new end-user features and not build SAML config screens.
WorkOS is surprisingly popular with the VP Sales. They have no idea what SAML or SCIM means, but they know it's blocking big deals. WorkOS helps them unlock that revenue.
One issue with Enterprise Software that I've experienced is that all subcontractors are scrutinised and have to be listed in contracts, clients has to be notified/approve changes etc.
I would love to pay you money but run this somehow under AWS (Marketplace?) so that I don't have to request signatures from all our clients.
The issue, AFAICT, is all about who has access to personal data and where that data is hosted (jurisdiction wise).
> "You can quickly add features including SSO/SAML, Director Sync (SCIM), Audit Logs, and more."
This is great. Congrats.
I work in a regulated industry (Life sciences/pharma) and all of these are challenges we've had to tackle as one-offs for our SaaS, so I could appreciate this bundled/bootstrapped approach.
Monday.com is the worst product I have ever had the experience of working with.
Spreadsheet with 200 rows and 20 columns? Your browser will be laggy as all hell thanks to their wonderful UI.
Try to tell support? The entire page jitters up and down as you type every single character in the support box on Chrome.
Reload the page? Well now the page isn't laggy at all, but literally it is not rendering rows that _are definitely there_.
I really wanted to like it -- beautiful user interface -- but it's an absolutely terrible product. And it was ~15 people on my team reporting the same exact behavior as we tried it.
I would consider recommending Monday.com to my worst enemy.
The hardest part of these docs was actually just writing the docs. So hard to come up with simple language for super complicated topics. And so much more still to do!
WorkOS is “Plaid for enterprise IT systems.”
I learned about these enterprise requirements the hard way. Previously, I founded Nylas where we built an email app called Nylas Mail. We couldn’t monetize that app and shut it down (RIP) and the main reason was that we couldn’t sell it to enterprise because it was missing features.
Here’s a short Twitter thread with more info about WorkOS: https://twitter.com/grinich/status/1239943470271188992
Best place to start is with the docs: http://docs.workos.com/
Would love to get your feedback, questions, and ideas. Thanks! :)