Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
AUGUST 21, 2009
My family doesn't go out for pizza anymore. We bought two pizza stones and a wooden pallet, and for the last couple of years we've made it at home. Why? Anchovies. (Cue up the theme music from "True Confessions" here.) I like anchovies on my pizza. Because not many others share this preference for small, salty fish on their pizza, it's very hard for me to find someone to split it with.
The Angel VC
SEPTEMBER 24, 2009
Have you ever seen someone get excited about accounting software ? Yes, I mean the kind of software for which you used to need a diploma in number-crunching and a PhD in bean-counting in order to be able to use it. Enter PC Pro’s review of FreeAgent, the web-based accounting tool that I’ve joined as an investor and advisor earlier this year. This is not one of those product reviews where someone spends an hour testing five different applications and writes a roundup afterwards.
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Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
DECEMBER 7, 2009
As a general rule, I try to steer clear of the corporate legal office. I usually have much more fun with the web designers, the PR folks, or even the sales reps than I do with the corporate counsel. That said, there are a few legal issues - particularly related to contracts - where I recommend marketers should pay a visit to that office with the impressive diplomas on the wall and the library of tomes on "Contracts" and "Intellectual Property.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
NOVEMBER 19, 2009
Last week, I listened to a panel of IT professionals share their experience with software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud solutions. In part, they confirmed what I've heard from other IT executives: "We expect performance, we expect security, we expect fail-over." (See Rule 4 in the " Ten Essentials of SaaS Solution Marketing. ") I was surprised, though, to hear from these IT professionals about another concern: usability.
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Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
NOVEMBER 9, 2009
True story. Nearly every three weeks since the day I first signed up for a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for web hosting, email, and domain registration services, I've been receiving renewal notifications. I think the first notice indicated "345 days remaining on your subscription." Last week, I saw that the subscription term was down to 34 days remaining, so I clicked on the button labeled "Renew.
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Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
OCTOBER 5, 2009
"Simplify, simplify" -- Henry David Thoreau In case you thought Walden Pond, the inspiration for Thoreau's reflections on the virtues of simplicity, was in a remote spot far from civilization, you should know that it's about 4 miles off of Route 128, "America's Technology Highway," in Concord Massachusetts. On most weekends, it's busy with picnickers, hikers and, in the summer, swimmers.
The Angel VC
AUGUST 16, 2009
A link in today's TechCrunch posting about Y Combinator's "Request for Startups" idea brought me to an earlier "Startups ideas we'd like to fund" list, published by Paul Graham about a year ago. It's a terrific list of ideas, and I applaud Paul for sharing them (execution is everything!). If you're toying with the idea of founding an Internet startup and you're not sure what kind of business you're going to start, I highly recommend going through the list.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
JULY 14, 2009
Marketing people usually pay a lot of attention to consistency. They want to convey the same message, the same value proposition, across all marketing media: the web site, literature, presentations, press releases, etc. And now there are even more places to police: blogs, twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. When I've been in that role, I called myself the "message cop.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
JULY 8, 2009
During the summer, I spend most Saturday morning's tending to my yard and garden, though my tomatoes are struggling with all this rain we've had here in New England. But in the winter, I sometimes watch the succession of cooking shows that run all day on public television. I prefer the ones in which the host chef measures ingredients in "handfuls of this" and "dashes of that.
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The Angel VC
JULY 1, 2009
"The Europas" , the tech award that was brought into being by TechCrunch UK 's Mike Butcher ( profile , Twitter account ), is getting a lot of attention in the tech world at the moment. The award, which "honors the best tech companies and startups across the web and mobile scene from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa", will be presented in a big ceremony on July 9 in London.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
JUNE 29, 2009
Folks talking about software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing often use the label "hybrid." I understand that "hybrid" refers to something that's part "this" and part "that." I'm just not always sure what "this" and "that" are. Sometimes "hybrid" refers to a solution that runs partly in the cloud and partly on-premise. An email system, for example, might handle some functions on a remote server accessed via the web, but other functions might be managed on the user's desktop.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
JUNE 19, 2009
Early in my career, I taught bank credit analysts-in-training how to read financial statements. During my course, they heard from me one constant refrain: "Read the notes, read the notes, read the notes." The notes to a company's financial statements often reveal critical insights behind the numbers. The advice on how to read financial statements certainly applies to software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, and especially to their reported customer renewal rates.
The Angel VC
MARCH 24, 2009
I just got an email from the famous (and with respect to his Twitter activity, some would say infamous) Guy Kawasaki. His email signature is really hilarious, which is why I want to share it with you: Sent from a MacBook not an iPhone. -- Guy Kawasaki Nononina, Inc. 360 xxxx Street, Suite 100 Palo Alto, CA 94301 [link] xxxx@xxxx.com (best way to get in touch) 650-838-xxxx office (you'll never get me here) 650-387-xxxx cell (Spinvox will convert voicemail to email so I don’t have to listen to peo
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The Angel VC
MARCH 4, 2009
Following my long-due update on Pageflakes here’s an update on what I’ve been doing since I’ve left Pageflakes. After spending some time with my family at a beautiful place in the sun , I started to look for new opportunities (to be perfectly honest I of course couldn’t resist researching new ideas while we were still on Barbados. Caribbean beaches and a DSL connection, what more can you ask for?).
The Angel VC
FEBRUARY 2, 2009
It’s again been a very long time that I wrote something here, and an even longer time that I wrote about Pageflakes or about what I’ve been doing since I left the company about a year ago. I did become a reasonably active Twitterer in the meantime though – the 140 character format is probably better suited for my literal talent! Anyway, I thought it’s time for a quick update.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
SEPTEMBER 3, 2009
Though I've spent more than 25 years in marketing, truth be told, I still don't understand what people really mean when they talk about "go-to-market strategy." I'm not quite certain what a "marketecture" is, and almost any marketing term that starts with "integrated" is likely to confuse me as well. I confess that I fall into the same trap, using this marketing jargon when I'm not careful.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
AUGUST 11, 2009
A race car driver who had just qualified for the first time for the Indianapolis 500 explained to me the most difficult part of navigating the 2.5 mile circuit: keeping the accelerator pushed to the floor. He said it's easy to do while driving down the straightaway; the tough part is when you're heading into the 90-degree turn at the end. If you lift the pedal, the car won't turn left in front of the concrete wall at turn one.
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Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
AUGUST 3, 2009
As a graduate student in foreign affairs in the late 1970's, I took a required course on "The Balance of Strategic Forces." It was all about the strength of the nuclear arsenal of the United States relative to that of the Soviet Union. My favorite part of the course was when officers from each of the branches of the military lectured us on the virtues of their particular contribution to mutually assured destruction.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
SEPTEMBER 9, 2009
How much should we spend on tradeshows? Should we spend more on search engine optimization, or pay-per-click? Are webinars worth the cost? As a marketing adviser, I suppose I should charge a hefty fee to address these inquiries. But I'll share the answers with you right here, right now, for absolutely nothing: I do not know. That may not be something you often hear from an expert, but it's the best short answer I can honestly offer.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
DECEMBER 30, 2009
Now in late December, the field of my neighbor's farm is bare, except for a single row of hardy, but frozen-solid Brussels sprouts stems. In a few weeks, though, my neighbor and his crew will be working inside the greenhouse with a specially-devised planting machine. They pour a large burlap bag full of seeds into the hopper and the machine carefully inserts a single seed into an individual tray compartment.
Practical Advice on SaaS marketing
SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
Does anyone else remember something that resembled a programmable typewriter? I was volunteering at a legal aid office during the summer of 1971, and one day they rolled in a workstation outfitted with an electric typewriter, an automatic paper feeder, and a box attached to the typewriter where the typist/operator plugged in different cartridges. As I recall, each cartridge would cause the typewriter to automatically type out a standard legal document, pausing at certain points to allow the typi
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