http://www.softwareceo.com?src=articles_rss SoftwareCEO - Latest Articles Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:23:23 GMT admin@softwareceo.com SoftwareCEO 60 http://www.softwareceo.com/brand/sceo/community.gif http://www.softwareceo.com?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45212/Do-You-Deliver-Stunningly-Awful-Software-Demos-Peter-Cohan-Bursts-12-Common-Blunders/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/45212/39e706a46ad531be--13eb0b30-13578306662--48031331007351.jpg">Peter Cohan, founder of Belmont, Calif.-based The Second Derivative , has helped hundreds of software companies large and small improve their demos since 2003. His book, " Great Demo! " offers 300 pages of positive advice, but when we spoke with him, we asked Cohan to concentrate on the negative: Tell us how software companies blow it when they show off their products. So, read 'em and weep: If any of these dozen disasters sounds like something you're doing, it's time to change your ways. Blunder #1: You conduct Harbor Tours. " For almost all software companies, whether large or small or in-between, there's a strong tendency to dive into a demo without discovery," Cohan says. "They ignore asking about customer needs and lead with the product. "This is what's known as the 'Harbor Tour': You're put on a boat and driven around the harbor for three hours, and the customer is asked, 'So, have you seen anything you like so far?'" The Fix: "You need to invest time to understand the customer's situation," says Cohan. "What challenges are they seeking to address, what's getting in the way, what specific capabilities is the customer looking for to solve his or...<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45212/Do-You-Deliver-Stunningly-Awful-Software-Demos-Peter-Cohan-Bursts-12-Common-Blunders/">[Read more]</div> Sales and Distribution Strategy and Leadership Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:53:17 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45212/Do-You-Deliver-Stunningly-Awful-Software-Demos-Peter-Cohan-Bursts-12-Common-Blunders/?textpage=3#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45212/Do-You-Deliver-Stunningly-Awful-Software-Demos-Peter-Cohan-Bursts-12-Common-Blunders/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45156/Eric-Ries-Author-Entrepreneur-Offers-10-Fat-Tips-for-Lean-Software-Startups/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/45156/39e706a46ad531be--13eb0b30-135342ae1fe-1f991425890822.jpg">Eric Ries is something of a w&uuml;nderkind in the startup world: kind of like the brainy professor who makes learning fun, even while he's pointing out all your stupid mistakes. Ries is the creator of The Lean Startup methodology and the author of the oft-cited blog for entrepreneurs, Startup Lessons Learned . He's written a book around his method, called, of course, " The Lean Startup ." Ries is not just a talking head; he has a serious credentials as a software entrepreneur. He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU , he was a senior software engineer at There.com , and he's the co-author of several books, including " The Black Art of Java Game Programming. " In 2007, Businessweek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech, and in 2009 TechCrunch gave him a TechFellow award in the category of Engineering Leadership. He serves on the advisory board for several tech startups, and in 2010 he became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School . We recently talked with Ries to ask him what advice he'd offer to software entrepreneurs; we got an earful. Tip #1: Your plan is probably wrong. "The biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is...<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45156/Eric-Ries-Author-Entrepreneur-Offers-10-Fat-Tips-for-Lean-Software-Startups/">[Read more]</div> Strategy and Leadership Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:26:49 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45156/Eric-Ries-Author-Entrepreneur-Offers-10-Fat-Tips-for-Lean-Software-Startups/?textpage=3#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/45156/Eric-Ries-Author-Entrepreneur-Offers-10-Fat-Tips-for-Lean-Software-Startups/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44580/Most-Software-Startups-Blow-It-In-Beta-Mobile-Developer-Apsalar-Shows-Another-Way/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/44580/39e706a46ad531be--13eb0b30-134eba78983-6b93-2029418058.jpg">A few months back, San Francisco-based developer Apsalar raised $5 million in venture capital, bringing its total funding to $5.8 million from three investors. While it's true that Apsalar is in a hot space -- mobile apps -- it's the firm's customer-centric focus that drives development as well as business planning, not to mention the very genesis of the product. The problem with mobile apps, you see, is that about a third of them are downloaded and used once. Period. End of story. Apsalar provides user-level analytics to help software publishers avoid that two-thirds drop-off, and instead engage and build relationships with customers. Michael Oiknine, Apsalar's co-founder and CEO, says that if software startups want to succeed, they need to stop focusing on products, and start paying attention to customers. Tip #1: Nail it before you scale it. Founded in April 2010, Apsalar released their first free product in the Fall of 2010; that became a full product in February 2011, and a paid version was introduced in the Fall of 2011. The company has 13 employees, but Oiknine says he wants to increase that number to 20 as soon as possible. "At that point," he says, "we'll be at...<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44580/Most-Software-Startups-Blow-It-In-Beta-Mobile-Developer-Apsalar-Shows-Another-Way/">[Read more]</div> Strategy and Leadership M&amp;A and Financing Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:09:46 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44580/Most-Software-Startups-Blow-It-In-Beta-Mobile-Developer-Apsalar-Shows-Another-Way/?textpage=2#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44580/Most-Software-Startups-Blow-It-In-Beta-Mobile-Developer-Apsalar-Shows-Another-Way/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44552/Startup-Genome-Can-Find-Your-Software-Company-s-Failure-Points/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/44552/39e706a46ad531be--57185861-134a4896598--c97-5807043.jpg">What makes a startup successful? We can talk until we turn blue about all the touchy-feely components: vision, leadership, focus, luck, and the like. But now, thanks to the efforts of four young entrepreneurs, you can apply an empirical grid to your own company's chances for success. The 67-page Startup Genome Report , created by Bjoern Herrmann and Max Marmer, began with data from 3,200 startups. As a result of heavy interest over the past few months, the input now exceeds 15,000 firms. (The report is free, though registration is required.) The starting point is the Startup Genome Compass , a free benchmark survey for your firm. "The more companies that use the Compass, the thinner we can slice the data," says Bjoern Herrmann. "We can predict your trajectory." What insights have surfaced so far? What separates the winners from the losers in the land of software startups? We spoke with Herrmann to listen and learn from Startup Genome's findings. Tip #1: Innovation is not enough; you need data. "I think of the analogy of the fountain of youth," Herrmann says. "Startups are considered to be the fountain of youth. Until now, it was super-hard to understand how the fountain...<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44552/Startup-Genome-Can-Find-Your-Software-Company-s-Failure-Points/">[Read more]</div> Strategy and Leadership Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:19:34 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44552/Startup-Genome-Can-Find-Your-Software-Company-s-Failure-Points/?textpage=2#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44552/Startup-Genome-Can-Find-Your-Software-Company-s-Failure-Points/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44174/6fusion-CEO-John-Cowan-Offers-11-Tips-for-Channel-Development-and-Software-Startups/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/44174/39e706a46ad531be--2a8f7910-1345c5b4a9d--49a6-1292871959.jpg">Raleigh, N.C.-based developer 6fusion recently snared $7 million in Series-B funding to continue to develop and market its cloud management products; this follows a seed round of $3 million. That's a pretty healthy endorsement for a company that's been around for only three years, and for founders who don't have a star-studded string of IPOs behind them. Don't get us wrong: Co-founders John Cowan and Delano Seymour are sharp guys with big ideas. It's just that usually, when you read about that kind of VC money, you find mention of big-name past successes in the founders' backgrounds. Cowan, who serves as 6fusion's CEO, came from 12 years of business and product development in IT and telecommunications. Seymour, now 6fusion's CTO, is a Canadian engineer and developer who spent most of his time providing IT services for offshore companies in Bermuda. The big idea behind 6fusion is this: Cloud computing needs a better way to simplify the metering, consumption, and billing of compute, storage and network resources. To that end, they developed what they call the Workload Allocation Cube (WAC) , which 6fusion says is the most granular and universal metric for metering and delivering cloud computing on the market today....<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44174/6fusion-CEO-John-Cowan-Offers-11-Tips-for-Channel-Development-and-Software-Startups/">[Read more]</div> Strategy and Leadership Operations and Legal Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:18:03 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44174/6fusion-CEO-John-Cowan-Offers-11-Tips-for-Channel-Development-and-Software-Startups/?textpage=2#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/44174/6fusion-CEO-John-Cowan-Offers-11-Tips-for-Channel-Development-and-Software-Startups/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43802/Software-Sales-Advice-from-E-commerce-Bright-Star-BigCommerce/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/43802/39e706a46ad531be--4224d7b9-1341343e38c-65011066947592.jpg">BigCommerce began creating its own identity in June 2009, as a subsidiary of Interspire , which was founded in in Australia in 2003 by Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani. Interspire headquarters are still in Sydney, but the U.S. operation has now become the dominant face of the organization, with 50 employees in Austin, Texas (versus 30 in Sydney). Revenues are up 680 percent over last year, and BigCommerce now has 15,000 paying clients for its SaaS e-commerce software. This past summer, BigCommerce snagged $15 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst Partners . The BigCommerce platform gives retailers and merchants an easy and affordable way to manage e-commerce online, including search, inventory, marketing, SEO, and online payments. Packages range from $25 to $300 per month, depending on the number of products, logins, bandwidth, and storage needed. We recently caught up with Lee Sellers, BigCommerce sales manager, to get his perspective on software sales. Sellers came to BigCommerce from Dell , where he had 10 years of experience with B2B lead generation, nurturing, and selling. Tip #1: Pick the brains of the best brains. "W hat we do very well is ask a lot of questions of others in the...<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43802/Software-Sales-Advice-from-E-commerce-Bright-Star-BigCommerce/">[Read more]</div> Sales and Distribution Strategy and Leadership Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:11:58 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43802/Software-Sales-Advice-from-E-commerce-Bright-Star-BigCommerce/?textpage=2#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43802/Software-Sales-Advice-from-E-commerce-Bright-Star-BigCommerce/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43751/CEO-Survey-Index/?src=articles_rss Previous CEO surveys here at SoftwareCEO. Vote in the latest poll on the homepage ! You can also vote in polls here that you have not yet voted in, and see the results. Human Resources R&D Sales & Distribution Pricing & Licensing Strategy & Leadership Internal/Demographics M&A and Financing<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43751/CEO-Survey-Index/">[Read more]</div> Strategy and Leadership Mon, 21 Nov 2011 23:19:26 GMT softwareceo http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43751/CEO-Survey-Index/#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43751/CEO-Survey-Index/?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43747/Can-You-Save-the-Planet-and-Still-Make-Money-Software-Startup-Simple-Energy-Bets-Yes/?src=articles_rss <img align="right" hspace="10" src="http://www.softwareceo.com/imagelib/contentitem/43747/39e706a46ad531be--589a0533-133c55d0410-7cc42072172958.jpg">Boulder, Colo.-based startup Simple Energy has an ambitious game plan: Help millions of consumers save energy through a combination of web networks, behavioral modification tools, and demand response. Of course, the company would also like to make money. Apparently, many industry veterans think that they can: Simple Energy recently attracted $900,000 in seed capital from a well-connected group of angel investors . Founded (and bootstrapped) in September 2010, Simple Energy now has four employees and is searching for four more. Founder and CEO Yoav Lurie says he expects that the headcount in a year will be somewhere in the range of 12 to 30. The first version of Simple Energy's product was released in June 2011 -- and this was a radical departure from the founders' original idea. Which leads us to the first of several great tips from Lurie: Tip #1: Your idea may not be the right one, so listen up. Last year, the Simple Energy founders visited a local utility company to pitch their Big Idea. "We actually went in with a slide show for a totally different business," Lurie says. "It was a hardware product that we'd give away for free. A thermostat. "The feedback we...<div><a href="http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43747/Can-You-Save-the-Planet-and-Still-Make-Money-Software-Startup-Simple-Energy-Bets-Yes/">[Read more]</div> Strategy and Leadership M&amp;A and Financing Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:26:00 GMT Bruce Hadley, Founder http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43747/Can-You-Save-the-Planet-and-Still-Make-Money-Software-Startup-Simple-Energy-Bets-Yes/?textpage=2#discussion?src=articles_rss http://www.softwareceo.com/article/43747/Can-You-Save-the-Planet-and-Still-Make-Money-Software-Startup-Simple-Energy-Bets-Yes/?src=articles_rss