Simplify Media breaks Apple iTunes domain

Simplify Media is an early stage startup dedicated to making it easier for people to access and enjoy their digital music, photos and videos with close friends and family. Our software connects people directly from within their favorite desktop applications, without having to upload and download files via a website or learn a new user interface. The first version of Simplify Media lets you listen to your home music from any computer or browse and play your friends' music over the Internet. Simplify Media integrates with iTunes, Winamp, Banshee and Rhythmbox and runs on Mac, Windows and Linux computers, as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Ecosign, the next level web 2.0 business app

Ecosign has built a robust and trustworthy SaaS product, usable for small/mediumsized organisations, as well as for departments in large corporations. This is really where Web 20 and SaaS products will find their new market. Because until now it has been virtually impossible for a sales manager or department manager to freely choose the software he needs to support his business work-flow. Now he can just rent the needed service without having to make his project into an "IT project", thereby having to involve the IT department.

EchoSign is a eSignature and contract management company helping you keep you get all your documents signed online. The company is a direct competitor to DocuSign which took a substantial round of financing in the summer of 2007. EchoSign fired back with a second round of $6 million and partnerships with CRM powerhouse Salesforce.com, WebEx and Zoho.

EchoSign’s signature process requires users to email documents through its system which takes care of the signing process on the other side. A machine readable fax cover sheet is added automatically to your email which includes a signable form or you can post a form to your website on which signers can authorize documents.

There are 4 levels of membership. For 5 or less signatures a month, the service is free. There are “pro”, “team” and enterprise levels as well that begin at $13 a month.

Eye.fi, smartest innovation 2008?

Unfortunately I just purchased the Sony CyberShot, and the other day I found Eye.fi, an SD card innovation that connect many new digital cameras to a wifi net. This opens up for lots and lots of new exiting (SaaS) services.

If you just love gadgets, sports and other stuff...

Vimby is the really hot place to be late night.... Has nothing to do with my usual writing, but I just could not resist :-)

VIMBY - Ride SFO Bicycle Expo

Box.net is leading the way to the new breed web 2.0

Several new SaaS and Web 2.0 application developers have realized the market potential of making smart business applications with built-in dynamic APIs. This means any type of business can start shopping around for specialized business applications, and then just joint data from various applications together.

Centurio CRM (built on Sugar CRM) have made Talend Open Studio an integrated part of their offer, and Box.net - a leading provider of tools for managing and sharing content online - offers an API where other developers can integrate their products and services. By providing flexible storage online, Box.net connects people socially and professionally, enabling them to collaborate, share, and access their important files securely and easily, from anywhere and for free.
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The Box.net Files application allows you to:

• Upload and manage your files from within LinkedIn
• Post files to your profile
• Share files and collaborate with your LinkedIn friends and colleagues
• View and edit your files online

The market is shaky, but still there

Even though everyone is complaining and disturbed over the growing financial crises It seems as if the SaaS market is still on the move. Sales of services continues to grow, and customers seems to see the opportunities in signing up for low cost non-problematic solutions. To be quite frank, I believe the hard time market is really the best environment for SaaS.

Fraud & grand theft for 500 MDKK at IT Factory

The manager at IT Factory Mr. Stein Bagger apparently took 500 Mill DKK and went underground. The strange thing is that large accountant companies and a professional board was fooled so easily?

I really feel sorry for all skilled employees who now will face a winter out in the shill.

TokBox, next level in social networking

TokBox is a web-based video chat application that lets you set-up video chat channels with unregistered users in seconds. The application has a simple user interface with controls for volume, muting and camera off. When you want to invite some to a video chat all you have to do is send them an email link or direct them to your user page. You can also add their Facebook application or embed your video chat channel on your website or MySpace page.

TokBox also has social-networking features so you can add friends you video chat with often. The product also detects installed cameras and microphones, which is helpful in cutting out technology barriers for mainstream users.

Toxbox has a very straightforward interface. If some is available to chat all you have to do is push the “Push to Talk” button and you connect, and if the person isn’t available you can leave them video mail or voicemail.

Also, Tokbox allows you to pull the video chat out of the browser and go to other websites or applications without disrupting the conversation. To do this you need to enable browser pop-ups.

And I used to love Skype....

When I first encountered Skype they where just a small start-up headed by Janus and Nicklas. I just loved to support a company who had in mind to "kill" all the BIG telco's around the globe. But now Skype have grown, even bigger than many telco's, and the service level is low. And their billing system is even worse.

For two weeks now I have tried to purchase Skype credits, using my Visa, using my Mastercard, using PayPal, and even trying to use my girlfriends Visa... but no,no, everytime I get reply messages saying the purchase was cancelled due to some unexplained problem. I have written about this both to Skypes support and in their forum. And looking at the forum I realize I'm not alone having problems.

I have checked with PayPal and with my bank and Visa... but there is no solution it seems.

I just wonder if the Skype investors knows about the problems? At least, if I where an investor I should demand that they solve their issues with payment problems.

Have Software resellers missed the train?

All the big and small software resellers - the companies with the packages and CD's - have probably already missed the SaaS train. At least I have not seen anyone who has presented a strategy, or a proof of concept. Instead it seems as if all the developing companies have organized their own sales and distribution. Is it because the resellers have not grasped the business models, or is it because they still believe SaaS will never be a threat on the market?

So here is a list of companies who should consider to evaluate SaaS as their next move:

- Insight
- Techdata

Quinyx FlexForce is a real hit

Quinyx FlexForce is a web based system to plan and manage flexible workforces. Developed and managed by Erik Fjellborg, a Swedish entrepreneur with high ambitions. Erik got his idea of being an independent SW developer when working at McDonalds, where he spotted an opportunity to change their old fashioned resource system. Now Erik has the ambition to take on the globe with his solution. Best of luck Erik.

If you missed SIME in Stockholm

SIME 08 - Morten Lund from SIME on Vimeo.

Sime is a really great conference for people interested in interactive new media. If you missed this seasons session you can view some of the keynote speakers and other interesting people at Vimeo.

The Mashable list of web apps is growing

Cameron Chapman at Mashable manages a list of 270+ web apps worldwide. Its fantastic that there still is so many opportunities to create new exiting concepts for online software.

Is your SaaS business growing big or just growing?

Many people I speak with have the idea, and wish, to grow their company organic, slowly building their business up, adding customer to customer. Thereby they might be able to avoid the cold blooded investors.

I do agree, to a point. The dot.com company creators had ideas nobody wanted to buy, solutions nobody used. Still they collected oceans of fuel for their burn rate. But nothing was left when it all collapsed. People with great ideas should start organic. Build block by block. With blood, sweat and tears.

But the turning point should come when they have proof of concept, when it really works, when customers are lining up, when money starts coming in.Then they should consider their baby as an adult, and let it go to the market. Then it's the right time to start up a new project.By doing that you can fulfill yet another desire many entrepreneurs have; Keeping the company small, but rich.

Selling your SaaS products globally

US based producers of Software as a Service have a few problems when targeting the European markets with their products. There are two main reasons for this. The first is the language problem. Europeans in general understands English, but feel more confident speaking their own language. It's also true language localized products is more popular compared to English only. And unfortunately Italian, Spanish, French and German people don’t even want to speak English.

The second problem is the time zones.  When you are awake, we are sleeping. So to effectively market and sell in Europe you either need to run a 24/7 office with sales staff who speaks 4-5 European languages,  or you need to open up local branch offices in Europe. Both alternatives are expensive and highly risky.

You could also choose to work with Value Added Resellers, but experiences from many producers who have tried it, shows that most V.A.Rs  are not solely dedicated to your product, or they have another core business, where your product will always come in second place. 

There are many resellers of software-in-a-box on the market, but nearly no resellers of SaaS products. (That is why developers depends on their own ability to manage sales and professional services. But really, they should stick to their core business and develop software instead.) The reason why traditional software-in-a-box resellers does not understand the SaaS business model is that their skills is in catalogue services, phone order service and physical distribution. Whereas a SaaS resellers focus must be in branding, marketing, online presentations, sales engineering and professional services. Hello SaaS resellers! Where are you?

Salespeople or e-commerce?

Some SaaS developers have chosen not to support their sales with active personal sales work. They trust their ecommerce solutions and website self services solutions to do the sales job.

However, experiences shows that active marketing and personal selling makes a big difference, especially for complex software products and services. It’s also proven that online purchase of SaaS solutions often leads to high churn. Whereas supported implementation and training often leads to long term usage of the services.

After renting your product for years...

There might come a time when your customers, after paying for your services for years, think they should pay less. So maybe it's time to start thinking about ways to prevent the coming churn already now?. Churn might be new to many software developers, but all Telco's know everything there is to know about it. You need a plan for how to squeeze the last months out of a rental agreements.

Here is a model that might work:

First, investigate how many months your current customers have been renting your service. Then find out who you lost, and why. Then set a clear goal, e.g. "an average customers should rent for 36 months". Then make a contractual incentive, e.g. give them -10% off price if they sign up for a 36 months binding period. Then make a plan for how their rental cost will decrease after 36 months. By doing that, and if you make it attractive enough, you might be able to have them sign up for another 24 or 36 months?

Also, since you are getting to know your customers, you should also find out what other needs they have. It might be a start for you to build another service to continue the relation you already have. Remember, up-sale is the least expensive way to increase your profit margins.

How to thrive the long term relations with customers?

The really big difference about Software as a Service, compared to regular software-in-a-box sales, is that you enter a long term relation with your customers. You send a bill each month, or quarterly, and you constantly upgrade the product. You service, train and support them, month after month, year after year.

There is a need to form a strategy of how to maintain your customer relations. How to build it up. Another way of looking at long term customer relations is that you can start small and build big. Get in with one small, cheap product. Prove yourself as a supplier, build up confidence, and then slowly throw the customers old software out, and change it to your solutions.

SaaS developers can obviously also harvest on involving their customers into their development plans. One of the really great project management systems, Daptiv Inc. has a great concept. They work with something they call the greenhouse, a smart way of collecting views from users and rank them by need.

They really got the hang of it

Here is a list of developers who understands how to do things right:

PipeLine Deals (USA). The developers at SalesForce should study the way the people at PipelineDeals are thinking. It's a really beautiful product, with a bright and shiny concept. Straigth on, nothing but the most needed features. The truth about really great CRM systems is naturally that you should spend as little time as possibly to mange the system, and as much time as possible to manage your customers. It's this the guys at PipeLine Deals have understood.

Goodbarry (AUSTRALIA) This is the markets first real eCommerce management service. Impressive in every small detail. 

TraceWorks  (DENMARK) The people at TraceWorks have developed the markets most impressive MRM (Market Resource Management) system. Further, they are totally independent of space and media, not like the Google tools. And since most users of MRM systems like to consider themselves as independent too, the TracWorks consept is right on spot.

Look out for the SaaS sales traps

Personal sales can be expensive if you don’t have clear rules of engagement. So the first thing you need to do is to filter your lead base into 2-3 categories.

Size and depth is usually two helpful ways to help you focus your sales force in the right direction.

The other is pricing of your services. A pricing model should have 3 dimensions; Operational costs, marketing costs and recurring margin. If there is not a balance between those dimensions, your business will not be profitable, and you will need to close down.

So how to beat the $10 per user/Mo competition? Well, look around. Many developers are trying to put more features for less into their products, others try to beat them by better design and usability. Yet, others try branding and marketing.

It's not easy, but one thing is clear. It's not enough just to build a functional software, any programmer can do that.

The trick is to develop a business concept that users can understand and agree to.

How to price your services?

Pricing SaaS products will be the next big issue for every developer. Not only are prices going down in general, making it really hard for customers to verify cost vs. need, it will also mean many developers will close for business. To think that recurring revenues will solve everything is a lie. Even if internet covers the globe, most sales and marketing will still be local. And  costs money. 

Go high end or low end or both?

I'm having a discussion with some people I'm working with. The question is if they should remake their current product, and build a "light" team version, and price it much lower.  This is a critical issue, since a mistake can cost lots of money. Will a new simplier version cannibalize on their current position? Will current users want to downgrade?

Want to start up a SaaS portal?

There is a need for a user oriented SaaS portal service, with editorial reviews, tests and user experiences? A place where users can publish their demands, requirements and needs. Where developers could pick up and deliver solutions. It's time to turn the clock around. Who will be first to launch such a service?

How to build an effective sales funnel

Many CRM systems have one big fault. They don't operate like most salespeople do. Many times it's too complicated, like SalesForce, with thousands of functionalities, forcing salespeople to spend oceans of time administrating the system. What you should look for is CRM systems who focus on workflows, using as few interfaces as possible, delivering only the key figures you really need. Like PipeLine Deals.

Did you miss something?

If you where a car manufacturer, would you just build one single model, offer one engine size, have it in one coulor only and sell it at one price level only? Probably not. But how come SaaS developers so often only have one product, one product version one price level and only one website?

And how come so many developers have not discovered that they have a unique production advantage, compared to almost any industry type in the world? Digital products are cheap to manufacture, multiply and distribute.

If SaaS developers should think like manufacturers of consumer goods or B2B products, they would quickly start to develop product variations, website variations, price variations, feature variations. They could even present their basic products under different brandnames, different designs and coulors. Quick, easy and at low cost.

Presenting rich and variable SaaS product portfolios, with something for everyone would surely boost sales.