Mark Roseman's Blog

Press for Startup Launches.

Good set of PR tips for startups launching their product.

Web Tweaks.

Bob's book was actually pretty well-timed, as I'd been doing some tweaks on some of the main pages of my product site (also with some great feedback from Dave Collins at Shareware Promotions).

Renewed pages include the main product page, the wiki done right page (target of wiki-related ads on AdWords, from where we receive a lot of our eventual customers), and the screenshots page.

Anyone else have ideas for improvements?

Review: MicroISV Sites that Sell

Bob Walsh (MicroISV, author, and consultant), has released a new $19 ebook entitled MicroISV Sites that Sell!.

Let me just start out by saying that for any small software company, spending $19 to potentially improve your sales is just a no-brainer (one sale). If you're generating any kind of income, the time you spend reading and applying the lessons in this book will overshadow the cost. But really, there's enough evidence from the blogs etc. we read each day that at least part of our time really isn't worth that much. ;-)

Like his MicroISV book, this is clear, well-written and very well targeted to the audience (more on that in a moment). As appropriate for the format, this smaller ebook focuses tightly on one thing: the Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Anyone who has cracked a marketing book will probably be familiar with the concept, but Bob applies it very concretely to the specific domain of software company web sites. Who is your product for? What is the benefit to them? You can see how those translate into very specific elements of your web site. That provides guidance in terms of what to include on your site, and how to do it. Perhaps most importantly, he spends a lot of time discussing why these are so important, in terms of the common mistakes that developers make with their sites, and what effect that can have on your readers.

For many software developers, it's difficult to see things through the eyes of their customers, but this ebook does its best to beat you over the head until you do (that's a good thing by the way). Besides the what to do, what not to do, and why to do it, there are also example sites and conversations with five different MicroISV's (see, people like you delivering the same message, maybe now you'll listen?), as well as a set of quite comprehensive checklists for evaluating or recrafting your site and message. So a single topic, but attacked quite comprehensively from enough different perspectives that hopefully it'll cause a lightbulb to go on.

In terms of metaphor, Bob takes the developer concept of GoF-style design patterns and applies that to developing your USP. For the most literal-minded developer who things marketing and business in general is entirely a fuzzy black art, perhaps this isn't a bad idea. For the rest of us (i.e. anyone who's actually started a business) I think it's best to treat that as humorous hyperbole. The main thing is that people can see the path from "we need this" to "here's how to do it".

If you're running a small software business, go buy this ebook. If nothing else, let it be the trigger and inspiration for a close review of your current website, something you should be doing at least every few months anyway.

As next steps, it would be nice to see a forum where developers can compare notes on their sites, specifically within this framework (e.g. using the checklist). This will probably evolve informally as part of the Business of Software forum, which already generates many requests for site reviews.

Bob also offers site reviews as part of his consulting services; he may want to consider offering a lower-priced, focused review based on this framework. As a prerequisite, developers could complete the checklist, and using that and the developer's site, some specific suggestions on the USP could be made. Of course, the price could then be applied against the cost of a full site review later. Offering that as e.g. a $199 service might be a nice transitional step between the $19 of purchasing the ebook and $700+ for a full site review, and would certainly help Bob build up a very targeted list for that and other products/services.

This is the first of several ebooks that Bob expects to write, which can only be a good thing for the community of MicroISV's. Looking forward to the next one!

Mozilla Messaging.

It's great to see the newly named Mozilla Messaging moving along. As I've said before, this is a tremendous opportunity, but as many people have found out, one that is incredibly challenging. Well, not challenging to do something, but challenging to really effect a significant change.

One thing that I think puts it in a better position than most to be successful is the openness. Not so much the open source aspect of it, though that contributes. But more the open architecture. You look at the number of plugins and add-ons for Firefox, and then you think... how many different ideas do people really have about web browsing? But email... ahh, you want to talk about different approaches and different needs, now there is a domain for you!

The traditional self-contained / monolithic mail application has either aimed to tackle one or two things, or tried to do a bit of everything. Neither approach works very well, for the obvious reasons. Doing an email application this way inevitably leads to the "Microsoft Word" problem - everyone uses only 20% of Word's features, but everyone has a different 20%. What to include? What to exclude?

With a plugin approach, there is the potential to get around this. But it's really hard. At the technical level you need to provide the deep roots that make a truly wide variety of plugins possible, allowing you to add new functionality and new user experience. But that challenge I think pales in comparison with the user experience for plugins. How do you know they're there? How do you find the right ones? How do you manage them? How, in effect, do you make your own personal email client, or even better, how does the right email client for you end up in front of you, by whatever means? Firefox's success with plugins is a good start, but email is going to need a few more layers of magic happening to make it truly pay off.

Starting with an existing product (Thunderbird) may make this a bit difficult, because you're always pulling against existing code... "but, but, but I don't want to break these 500 plugins that are out there". But it's also the only way to keep your feet on the ground enough to get something done. Way too easy to keep going up yet another level of abstraction and away from code in this domain. Having good UX people involved and with a significant role is hugely important.

In any case, glad to see this soft launch, and glad to hear that there have been many people who've been energized by this and have committed themselves to make it happen. In many ways, it can be very tempting...

Future of Small Business Report.

For those interested in small business trends, the third Future of Small Business Report from Intuit/IFF is out. As with the previous two, this makes for interesting reading.

Mooseicide.

Thanks to jcw for passing along this little gem: Suicidal moose descends on Alaska. Probably heard some of the theories that with McCain there's a chance the Republicans could possibly win again in the US election.

Snow? Huh?

Another huge dump of snow last night.. there's both way more of it and it's happening way more often this year than last. Reminds me of when I was a kid growing up in Winnipeg. I'm glad we can mostly get by without needing to drive anywhere. And snow shoveling on a bright clear day is more pleasant than the cardio machines at the gym (though needless to say, I don't think I'd be using those machines for as much time as I've been outside today..).