I came to the realization this morning that committing to a SaaS platform not only binds you to the technology, but also binds you to the business strategy and target market of the platform provider. This is a HUGE deal!

Case Study:
In 2005, I wrote an integration piece for SomePlatformProvider.com that would help small teams manage their weekly catered lunches. The first thing I did was research SomePlatformProvider.com’s customer base. What I found was that the average customer size was 50-100 employees. Because I knew I would be selling to SomePlatFormProvider customers, I thought it would be wise to tailor my offering to fit the budget and needs to companies with 50-100 employees. Doing this paid off huge for me! Soon I was the #1 provider of catered lunch tracking and making a ton of money. Everything was great. But then, my sales started dropping off. I did a little research. Most of the new companies that signed on to SomePlatformProvider’s services didn’t do catered lunches, I found!! After more research, I discovered that instead of the average company size being 50-100 employees, it was now 400-800 employees. And what I found out was that companies that big never did catered lunches - They all hired in-house chefs to cook because it was cheaper. It was only the smaller, more entrepreneurial companies that did catered lunches. Slowly my sales dropped off to the point that I had to shut down my business.

I wonder how many people who sell platform bolt-ons have really considered this. What if the target market of the host changes to something that’s not compatible with what I’m selling?

When people talk about “platform”, they usually use the word ecosystem. This is actually a really good word - because the balance is just as delicate as an environmental ecosystem. The smallest change could cause hundreds of businesses to fail!

When I was getting my feet wet in software development, I remember a recurring debate that happened between myself and my mentor. At the time, we were in the business of custom software for small businesses (for those reading - you couldn’t see it, but my neck just twitched and my eyes rolled into the back of my head). We were trying to use these small projects to build a core of reusable software that would allow us to increase profits until we could turn it into a resellable product. Yes, we were smoking crack more or less. The problem we were constantly running into was:

- If you want code to be reusable, you have to take the time to plan and code it right.
- Nobody (and especially small businesses) wants to pay you to do that.

My mentor’s argument was that I was rushing the projects and in turn creating dreaded “spaghetti code”.
My argument was that he was taking waaay to long to “do it right” and we were losing money because clients wouldn’t pay for the work.

Under these circumstances, I was the one who found success. It wasn’t because I was the better programmer, though. In fact, he had much more sophistication in his design than I did. But when it came right down to it, I was the one who could deliver a product that worked, was on time, and within budget.

We had a mantra in the early days: Customers want their software good, fast, and cheap. They can pick two of the three, but can’t have all three. And naturally, almost every small business chose fast and cheap.

Now our company is in a much different position. We have a product and our customers don’t dictate HOW we develop. We get to do that now. And preparing for the long haul, we are definitely bringing the “good” back. Now we just have to decide if we want fast or cheap to go along with our “good”.

We are in the process of working on a groovy new interface to our already sweet small business CRM product, InfusionCRM.

Our product is web-based, written in Java - and I was thinking that we should definitely check out the latest craze in the Web 2.0 world - RIA. After some googling, I found that all three of the bigs were cross-platform. So I immediately went to check out some demos. I looked at:

1. Adobe Apollo (AIR)
2. Microsoft Silverlight
3. JavaFX (Poor Sun, I don’t think they ever intended JavaFX to be on lists like this one)

What I quickly found was that (with the exception of JavaFX), what these platforms meant when they said cross-platform was Windows+MacOSX. No Linux, no legacy Mac, no Lindows (How could they leave out Lindows??!!!).

Before I get flamed, I know that Adobe is planning a Linux version, and the people over at Mono are going to port Silverlight, and I really honestly don’t care about RIA products for Linux as a user.

I’m worried about what is means for Linux developers.

Most Web-based Java developers I know (EE and SE) develop on Linux. If the RIA runtime providers aren’t providing runtimes for Linux, what can we expect for development tools? It’s too early to tell right now for sure. Providers are just now coming out with the brand-new 1.0 versions as we speak, and ultimately the market will determine how well RIA runtimes are adopted (will it really make the ubiquitous HTML+Javascript obsolete?).

I for one will be watching very closely!

I liked “The Dip” enough to want to read more of Seth Godin’s stuff. So, I went out and bought a couple more of his books. I recently finished “Unleashing The Ideavirus” and took a few notes along the way. Here are some of my favorite lines/quotes from the book as well as an outline on ‘How To Unleash An Ideavirus’:

“The future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other.”

“The smoothest viruses, like Hotmail, spread themselves. Just the act of using the product spreads the virus.  A product that’s easy to recommend is often a product that’s easy to get hooked on.”

“We have crossed over a line and gone from being the vast majority who waited for something to become mainstream.  We’ve become the early adopters, the folks on the bleeding edge who actually seek out innovation. Because the population has shifted, the sweet spot has shifted. Companies no longer make most of their money harvesting money from the laggards who finally get around to buying something at K-Mart. They make their money the first day, the first week, the first month an idea is out there.”

“One of the most elegant ways to take advantage of the new tight network among consumers is to identify the powerful members of a hive and make it as easy as possible for them to tell each other about an ideavirus.”

“One of the best ways to facilitate adoption of your ideavirus is to find a bestseller list that makes sense and then dominate it. If that’s impossible, figure out how to create your own bestseller list and popularize that!”

“The odds are with you if you focus on small hives filled with pre-chasm sneezers, and then obsess with crossing the chasm as fast as you possibly can.”

“When Hotmail launched their free email service, they did almost everything right. They built a product that was worthy of an ideavirus. They made it smooth. They built amplification right into the product. They approached the right people and started with just enough push to make the thing take off.”

“It’s much easier to raise venture money with a plan that says you’re going to spend $30 million or $60 million dollars on traditional advertising than it is with a plan that says you’ll only spend $3 million but employ elegant but difficult techniques to get the word out.”

“Marketing is going to be changed forever by the connections we’ve made online.”

Step By Step, Ideavirus Tactics (How To Unleash An Ideavirus)

• Make it virus worthy
  • If it’s not worth talking about, it won’t get talked about
• Identify the hive
  • You won’t get the full benefit of the ideavirus until you dominate your hive.
• Expose the idea
  • Expose it to the right people and do whatever you need to do to get those people deep into the experience of the idea as quickly as possible. Pay them if necessary, especially at the beginning. Never charge for exposure if you can help it.
• Figure out what you want the sneezers to say
  • You’ve got to decide what you want the sneezers to say to the population. If you don’t decide, either they’ll decide for you and say something less optimal, or they won’t even bother to spend the time.
• Give the sneezers the tools they need to spread the virus
  • After you’ve got a potential sneezer, make it easy for him to spread the idea. Give him a way to send your idea to someone else with one click. Let me join your affiliate program in sixty seconds or less. Reward the people I spread the virus to, so I don’t feel guilty for spreading it.
• Once the consumer has volunteered his attention, get permission
  • The goal of the ideavirus marketer is to use the virus to get attention, then to build a more reliable, permanent chain of communication so that further enhancements and new viruses can be launched faster and more effectively, under your control this time.
• Amaze your audience so that they will reinforce the virus and keep it growing
  • Where are the Cabbage Patch Kids? Why do some viruses burn out more quickly than others? The simplest reason is that marketers get greedy and forget that a short-term virus is not the end of the process, it’s the beginning. By nurturing the attention you receive, you can build a self reinforcing virus that lasts and lasts and benefits all involved.
• Admit that few viruses last forever. Embrace the lifecycle of the virus
  • Cats was a terrific success on Broadway. But even great shows don’t last forever. By understanding that the needs of the virus change over time (and the benefits received change as well) the marketer can match expenditures to the highly leveraged moments.

Good luck creating your “Ideavirus”!

For the past five years, my team at Infusion Software has been driving hard to become the leader of CRM software for small business. We are motivated by a desire to liberate and empower small business owners and their employees so that they can enjoy doing business again, delight their customers and better serve their families and communities.

See, what many people don’t realize is that small business owners feel trapped by their businesses. They can’t take a vacation, go on a date with their spouse or attend their kid’s soccer game without feeling extreme pressure from the business. They obsess over the business, fretting about payroll, competitors, employees and the terrible thought of what would happen if they weren’t around to man the ship.

For all the pressures shouldered by the business owner, the employees aren’t enjoying a walk in the park, either. Frequently, they’re over-worked, under-appreciated and stuck doing menial tasks that prevent them from really contributing to the business, which results in low job satisfaction.

I should know. I’ve been there. In the early days of Infusion Software and other businesses I’ve run, I felt these pressures and frustrations. Our founder recognized the plight of the small business owner and founded Infusion Software 6 years ago to provide automation software for small businesses. Ironically, it wasn’t until we really began using our own software a few years ago that everything turned around for us.

Today, our software gives the small business owner and its employees what is needed to escape the rat race  - marketing and automation. That’s how we liberate small businesses, by helping them grow their companies quickly and profitably by automating their marketing, sales and customer service.

We have a lofty ambition at Infusion - to take this software to small businesses everywhere and give them the marketing and automation they need to grow their businesses quickly and profitably, all the while maintaining their sanity and an enjoyable quality of life.

The scope of what we’re doing is enormous. Millions and millions of small businesses need this software. For a long time, we felt like we were on an island, trying to pull this off on a wing and a prayer. Then, about a year ago, we began to attract some serious players and capital to help us on our mission.

Last month, we announced two significant achievements: we added Pat Sullivan to our Board (Read Press Release) and we added Michael Gerber as our spokesperson (Read Press Release). These two developments are huge!

Pat Sullivan knows what we’ve set out to do, and he’s done something very similar. Twenty years ago, the world needed contact management software. Pat recognized that, created a product called Act! and sold over 5 million copies to sales people and small businesses everywhere. A few years later, Pat created SalesLogix for small and medium sized businesses. That product has also been wildly successful with the company going public several years ago. Pat sold both companies a few years ago, but needless to say, he understands the software needs of small businesses.

Michael Gerber’s role with our company is equally important. Michael knows what small businesses need to be successful. Inc. Magazine called him the #1 small business guru in the world. He wrote the E-Myth, a book that underscores the importance of systems and marketing in the success of a small business. Of course, that’s exactly what we do at Infusion Software, so the fit is truly “hand in glove”.

I’m in awe of the contributions of Pat Sullivan and Michael Gerber to the small business world. I respect the heck out of both of them because they have dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions of small business owners and their employees.

Infusion Software will do the same thing over the next several years and I am thrilled to have the help and guidance of Pat and Michael along the way.

I’m in the process of moving to the Phoenix area from the LA area. On Sunday night I rushed out of my house in California with my iMac G5 under my arm. In my hurry, I forgot the power cord. CRAP!!!

I’m a tech geek. I need to be connected at all times. So, last night, I went down to the Apple Store in Chandler, AZ to buy another power cord. I explained to one of the “Geniuses” a the Genius Bar that I had left my cord at home and that I needed a new one. She lamented to tell me that they didn’t sell them in the store and that I’d have to buy one online. I think she could sense my frustration because she asked me to hold for a minute and ran into the back room.

About a minute later she emerged with power cord in hand. She said, “You can have this one” and just gave me the cord - no charge. I was shocked.

When businesses talk about customer loyalty, they often discuss how to create “loyal” customers. I think my experience at the Apple store has taught me that businesses should be asking the question, “How can we be loyal to our customers?” This in turn creates loyal customers.