On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 07:19:22 +0000, ehandbury wrote:
> Sohail Somani <soh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> I have a couple of ideas for software products that I plan to pursue.
>>
>> I plan to focus on what I think makes or breaks a business: marketing.
>> In the software industry, people *hate* sales people and big company
>> bull****. I know I do. Hence...
>
> 'Marketing' is a huge area. What point-of-difference will your
> application have over (say) Act!, Goldmine, Maximizer which are
> applications that someone can purchase at any retail store for $129, or
> a web-based marketing tool like salesforce.com? These applications have
> every possible marketing feature imaginable.
Well for one, I am *not* competing with these bad boys. That is for sure.
I do have a very key differentiating point that can grow if it is as
popular as I think it will be.
> I guess what I am trying to say is that your application will really
> need to be substantially better than these solutions to make a dent in
> the market.
If I am competing with them, sure.
> Horizontal market solutions (such as yours) are incredibly difficult to
> sell since there is a huge number of software titles already.
I'm not even sure what horizontal marketing is after Googling. I thought
it meant where you market to a broad market rather than narrow.
> I run a
> 10-person software shop and in creating software there are 2 distinct
> phases:
> 1) developing the software to the point where someone would write a
> cheque.
> 2) Getting people to write that cheque.
Link? :-D
> With myself, phase #1 took 18 months to get my software to the point
> where people were interested. If you write a horizontal market software
> program (which is seems you are), then you need an absolute whiz-bang
> program before people would even consider writing that cheque.
Ok. Will be absolutely whiz-bang. And faster than 18 months, I hope :-)
> My phase #2 took about 12 months to the point where I was covering
> costs.
That, I can understand.
> You could potentially market a beta program but you would have to give
> it away while it is beta, and only charge once its live.
That would be my plan.
> Good luck. Eric.
Thank you for your comments Eric
--
Sohail Somani
http://uint32t.blogspot.com
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