According to Medium, U.S. companies lose about $2.6 billion a year due to slow websites.
Poor file management — inefficient storage solutions and excessive file requests — can significantly slow down site performance, costing businesses both revenue and customer trust.
“Every time that something is broken or a user is angry, businesses lose money. And then they need to pay significant amounts to engineering teams to fix and maintain something that should’ve just been working,” says Igor Debatur, the co-founder and CEO of Uploadcare, a leading file management and content delivery platform.
In our interview, Igor shares how SaaS businesses can cut down on the hidden costs associated with having poor file management systems, as well as improve site performance without burdening in-house development teams.
Igor Debatur is the co-founder and CEO of Uploadcare, a leading file management and content delivery platform. With 20 years of experience in tech, Igor and three engineers launched Uploadcare to create advanced front-end tools and efficient file-handling solutions powered by AI-based algorithms. Prior to this, he co-founded Whitescape in 2006 alongside Anatoly Chernyakov, where they focused on helping entrepreneurs design and develop custom digital products while avoiding common early-stage pitfalls through the application of developer best practices.
Before building Uploadcare, Igor and his team helped launch more than 100 websites and apps for companies like ABBYY, Intel, and McDonald’s.
Through these experiences, Igor noticed two issues that were constantly overlooked by in-house development teams: file management and content delivery.
The problem is that ignoring these leads to unnecessary investments of hundreds of hours in building and maintaining systems that add no extra value to the core business.
“Users hate when their file uploads fail after long waiting. Or, did you ever encounter a form that requires you to upload a photo, but accepts only jpg and less than 1 MB? Or did you ever close a website because it’s not loading fast enough?”
These frustrations aren’t just minor inconveniences. Over time, these small issues compound, driving customers away and increasing churn rates.
On the other hand, businesses that prioritize seamless digital experiences not only retain users but also gain a competitive edge by fostering trust and loyalty.
According to Igor, the most common mistake SaaS businesses make when choosing a file management system is taking a “DIY” approach.
Building something from scratch yourself may lead to a higher risk of something breaking, failing to scale, or someone uploading malicious or abusive content and distributing it via your website.
“The frequent mistake is not using a pre-built solution for a problem that was solved years ago,” he says.
Because inefficient file management costs time and money, Shogun, a leading e-commerce platform with over 35,000 customers, turned to Uploadcare for a more efficient solution.
Shogun integrated Uploadcare’s solutionIt integrated Uploadcare’s uploading, optimization, and delivery solutions, resulting in:
Ultimately, C-suite executives should focus on integration time-to-value, upload speed, processing performance, and delivery speed.
“A file-handling solution must integrate easily with the existing tech stack, minimizing additional development, with all maintenance handled on the vendor’s side,” Igor explains.
Security measures such as built-in malware protection, access control, and compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA should also be the top priority.
“Cost-effectiveness comes not just from making files quickly accessible worldwide but also from automated optimizations based on the user’s bandwidth and device, such as format and resolution conversion. As you can see, all these elements would require significant resources to implement from scratch,” he adds.
So, what should SaaS businesses consider when choosing the best solution for their needs?
Igor advises against building it yourself, as doing so can divert focus from your core business and add unnecessary complexity and costs.
“Consider other options. It’s not a new problem, someone might’ve done a good job solving it. Otherwise, you risk investing significant time and resources into additional development when existing solutions can get you to market faster.”
With file management handled, Uploadcare shifted focus to improving video streaming performance and cutting operational costs with the launch of its Video CDN solution. Here’s how they did it:
By addressing both video delivery and file management in one platform, it eliminates the need for separate solutions.
“Many dedicated video delivery solutions focus solely on that, while businesses still have to figure out the uploading part. Also, if you work with different kinds of files, like documents and images, you need to find other tools to handle those or build them from scratch,” Igor explains.
Igor tells me that adaptive bitrate streaming cuts data transfer costs by automatically adjusting video formats and resolutions based on the user’s device and bandwidth.
This means less data is used compared to streaming large, unoptimized files.
Uploadcare’s video CDN solutionCompanies also save on infrastructure, developer, and storage costs since the video doesn’t need to be manually processed or stored in multiple formats.
For example, Aryeo, a content management platform for real estate media companies, processes 10K high-resolution image uploads every day.
At first, Aryeo’s team tried building an in-house uploader using open-source packages.
Although it worked 95% of the time, the 5% error rate consumed developers’ time and increased the churn rate among customers.
“By integrating Uploadcare, Aryeo achieved 99.9% uptime, enabling seamless processing of thousands of images from external users daily without additional infrastructure maintenance,” Igor says.
The solution enabled Aryeo’s development team to focus on their core product improvements, resulting in major releases every two weeks and daily mini-feature launches.
“I try to work with consultants and agencies who are interested in providing optimal results at the fastest pace. It requires vast experience in doing something that we want them to do, and these kinds of agencies always use the best dev tools and platforms available.
We’re not fans of a DIY approach unless you’re developing the main part of your business,” Igor concludes.
Igor’s advice is simple: use proven solutions, not DIY.
This approach lets companies focus on their core product without getting bogged down in maintenance and development.
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