Tier 1 Platform Prioritization - First 15 Platforms¶
This document provides the prioritized list of the first 15 platforms (Tier 1) to be built as ConnectSoft expands from 4 to 100+ platforms. It is written for product managers, platform engineers, and stakeholders planning platform development.
Note
This prioritization is based on the Platform Prioritization Framework and will be reviewed quarterly.
Tier 1 Platform List¶
1. API Gateway Platform¶
Category: Infrastructure & Core Services
Priority Score: 2.8/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Essential for microservices architecture, high customer requests - Technical Feasibility: High - Can leverage existing API Gateway template, well-defined patterns - Revenue Potential: High - Clear pricing model (per request/tenant), large market - Strategic Value: High - Enables all other platforms, critical infrastructure component - Development Complexity: Low - Existing templates, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Request routing and load balancing - Authentication and authorization - Rate limiting and throttling - API versioning - Request/response transformation - Circuit breaker integration
Target Timeline: Month 4
2. Payment Processing Platform¶
Category: Payments & Billing
Priority Score: 2.75/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Critical for SaaS monetization, universal need - Technical Feasibility: High - Can integrate with existing payment providers, standard patterns - Revenue Potential: High - Transaction-based pricing, high volume potential - Strategic Value: High - Enables subscription SaaS business model - Development Complexity: Medium - Payment provider integrations, 3-4 weeks to build
Key Features: - Multiple payment method support (credit cards, ACH, etc.) - Payment gateway abstraction - Fraud detection - Payment retry logic - Refund processing - Multi-currency support
Target Timeline: Month 4
3. Email Service Platform¶
Category: Communication & Collaboration
Priority Score: 2.7/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Essential for customer communication, high usage - Technical Feasibility: High - Can integrate with email providers (SendGrid, SES), standard patterns - Revenue Potential: High - Usage-based pricing, high volume - Strategic Value: Medium - Supports multiple use cases (transactional, marketing) - Development Complexity: Low - Provider integrations, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Transactional email sending - Email templates - Delivery tracking - Bounce and spam handling - Email analytics - Multi-provider support
Target Timeline: Month 4-5
4. Notification Platform¶
Category: Communication & Collaboration
Priority Score: 2.65/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Universal need for user notifications - Technical Feasibility: High - Can leverage event-driven patterns, standard architecture - Revenue Potential: Medium-High - Usage-based pricing, good volume - Strategic Value: Medium - Supports multiple communication channels - Development Complexity: Low - Event-driven, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Multi-channel notifications (email, SMS, push, in-app) - Notification preferences - Delivery tracking - Notification history - Template management - User preference management
Target Timeline: Month 4-5
5. File Storage Platform¶
Category: Infrastructure & Core Services
Priority Score: 2.6/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Essential for most SaaS applications - Technical Feasibility: High - Can integrate with Azure Blob Storage, standard patterns - Revenue Potential: High - Storage-based pricing, high volume - Strategic Value: High - Enables content and media platforms - Development Complexity: Low - Storage abstraction, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Object storage abstraction - File upload/download - Access control - CDN integration - Versioning - Lifecycle management
Target Timeline: Month 5
6. Subscription Management Platform¶
Category: Payments & Billing
Priority Score: 2.6/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Critical for SaaS business model - Technical Feasibility: High - Can leverage billing patterns, standard workflows - Revenue Potential: High - Per-subscription pricing, high value - Strategic Value: High - Enables SaaS monetization - Development Complexity: Medium - Billing logic, 3-4 weeks to build
Key Features: - Subscription lifecycle management - Plan management - Upgrades/downgrades - Renewals and cancellations - Proration - Usage tracking
Target Timeline: Month 5
7. Workflow Engine Platform¶
Category: Workflow & Automation
Priority Score: 2.55/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Business process automation, high customer interest - Technical Feasibility: Medium-High - Workflow patterns exist, some complexity - Revenue Potential: Medium-High - Per-workflow/tenant pricing - Strategic Value: High - Enables automation across categories - Development Complexity: Medium - Workflow engine complexity, 3-4 weeks to build
Key Features: - Workflow definition and execution - State management - Branching and parallel execution - Human tasks - Integration with other platforms - Workflow monitoring
Target Timeline: Month 5-6
8. Message Queue Platform¶
Category: Infrastructure & Core Services
Priority Score: 2.55/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Essential for async processing, microservices - Technical Feasibility: High - Can integrate with Azure Service Bus, standard patterns - Revenue Potential: Medium-High - Usage-based pricing - Strategic Value: High - Enables event-driven architecture - Development Complexity: Low - Queue abstraction, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Queue management - Message publishing/consuming - Dead letter queues - Message ordering - Priority queues - Retry logic
Target Timeline: Month 5-6
9. Event Bus Platform¶
Category: Infrastructure & Core Services
Priority Score: 2.5/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Event-driven architecture, high usage - Technical Feasibility: High - Can integrate with Azure Event Grid/Service Bus - Revenue Potential: Medium-High - Event-based pricing - Strategic Value: High - Enables event-driven patterns - Development Complexity: Low - Event routing, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Event publishing/subscribing - Event routing - Event filtering - Event replay - Event schema management - Dead letter handling
Target Timeline: Month 5-6
10. CRM Platform¶
Category: Customer & Relationship Management
Priority Score: 2.5/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: High - Universal need for customer management - Technical Feasibility: Medium-High - Standard CRM patterns, some complexity - Revenue Potential: High - Per-user/tenant pricing, large market - Strategic Value: Medium - Important but not critical - Development Complexity: Medium - CRM domain complexity, 3-4 weeks to build
Key Features: - Contact management - Opportunity tracking - Sales pipeline - Activity tracking - Reporting and analytics - Integration capabilities
Target Timeline: Month 6
11. Rate Limiting Platform¶
Category: Infrastructure & Core Services
Priority Score: 2.45/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: Medium-High - Important for API protection - Technical Feasibility: High - Standard rate limiting patterns - Revenue Potential: Medium - Often bundled with API Gateway - Strategic Value: Medium - Supports API Gateway and other platforms - Development Complexity: Low - Rate limiting algorithms, 2 weeks to build
Key Features: - Per-tenant rate limits - Per-API rate limits - Sliding window algorithm - Token bucket algorithm - Rate limit headers - Quota management
Target Timeline: Month 6
12. Health Check Platform¶
Category: Infrastructure & Core Services
Priority Score: 2.4/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: Medium-High - Important for observability - Technical Feasibility: High - Standard health check patterns - Revenue Potential: Medium - Often bundled, low standalone value - Strategic Value: Medium - Supports all platforms - Development Complexity: Low - Health check aggregation, 2 weeks to build
Key Features: - Service health checks - Dependency health checks - Health status aggregation - Health check scheduling - Alerting - Dashboard
Target Timeline: Month 6
13. Secrets Management Platform¶
Category: Security & Compliance
Priority Score: 2.4/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: Medium-High - Important for security, enterprise need - Technical Feasibility: High - Can integrate with Azure Key Vault - Revenue Potential: Medium - Enterprise-focused, good pricing - Strategic Value: High - Critical for security - Development Complexity: Low - Secret storage abstraction, 2-3 weeks to build
Key Features: - Secret storage and retrieval - Secret rotation - Access control - Audit logging - Encryption at rest - Multi-tenant isolation
Target Timeline: Month 6
14. Data Warehouse Platform¶
Category: Data & Analytics
Priority Score: 2.35/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: Medium-High - Important for analytics, growing need - Technical Feasibility: Medium - Can integrate with Azure Synapse/SQL, some complexity - Revenue Potential: Medium-High - Storage/compute-based pricing - Strategic Value: Medium - Enables analytics platforms - Development Complexity: Medium - Data modeling, ETL, 3-4 weeks to build
Key Features: - Data ingestion - Schema management - Query optimization - Multi-tenant data isolation - Data retention policies - Backup and recovery
Target Timeline: Month 6
15. Business Intelligence Platform¶
Category: Data & Analytics
Priority Score: 2.3/3.0
Justification: - Market Demand: Medium-High - Important for data-driven decisions - Technical Feasibility: Medium - Dashboard and reporting, some complexity - Revenue Potential: Medium-High - Per-user/tenant pricing - Strategic Value: Medium - Consumes data from all platforms - Development Complexity: Medium - Dashboard builder, 3-4 weeks to build
Key Features: - Dashboard creation - Report generation - Data visualization - Self-service analytics - Scheduled reports - Data export
Target Timeline: Month 6
Summary¶
Category Distribution¶
pie title Tier 1 Platforms by Category
"Infrastructure & Core Services" : 6
"Payments & Billing" : 2
"Communication & Collaboration" : 2
"Data & Analytics" : 2
"Workflow & Automation" : 1
"Customer & Relationship Management" : 1
"Security & Compliance" : 1- Infrastructure & Core Services: 6 platforms (API Gateway, File Storage, Message Queue, Event Bus, Rate Limiting, Health Check)
- Payments & Billing: 2 platforms (Payment Processing, Subscription Management)
- Communication & Collaboration: 2 platforms (Email Service, Notification Platform)
- Workflow & Automation: 1 platform (Workflow Engine)
- Customer & Relationship Management: 1 platform (CRM)
- Security & Compliance: 1 platform (Secrets Management)
- Data & Analytics: 2 platforms (Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence)
Development Timeline¶
gantt
title Tier 1 Platform Development Timeline
dateFormat YYYY-MM
section Month 4
API Gateway :2025-04, 1M
Payment Processing :2025-04, 1M
section Month 4-5
Email Service :2025-04, 2M
Notification :2025-04, 2M
File Storage :2025-05, 1M
Subscription Mgmt :2025-05, 1M
section Month 5-6
Workflow Engine :2025-05, 2M
Message Queue :2025-05, 2M
Event Bus :2025-05, 2M
CRM :2025-06, 1M
Rate Limiting :2025-06, 1M
Health Check :2025-06, 1M
Secrets Management :2025-06, 1M
Data Warehouse :2025-06, 1M
Business Intelligence :2025-06, 1MMonths 4-5: - API Gateway Platform - Payment Processing Platform - Email Service Platform - Notification Platform - File Storage Platform - Subscription Management Platform
Months 5-6: - Workflow Engine Platform - Message Queue Platform - Event Bus Platform - CRM Platform - Rate Limiting Platform - Health Check Platform - Secrets Management Platform - Data Warehouse Platform - Business Intelligence Platform
Success Criteria¶
- All 15 platforms deployed to connectsoft.io by end of Month 6
- Each platform meets quality standards (80%+ test coverage, documentation complete)
- Integration with core platforms (Identity, Audit, Config) working
- At least 5 platforms with active tenants by end of Month 6