Apparently the box…. who’d a thunk. I clearly thought the arrow was before this presentation on boxes.
The Box
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Browsing Category
Leadership
Words of business wisdom
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The web is full of how-to articles from technology CEOs about their views on strategies and tactics. A lot of the time those CEOs have not quite achieved the full success their strategies seem to imply. I recently came across a piece about Rick Stollmeyer, CEO of MindBody Software. MindBody provides SaaS solutions for yoga studios, Pilates, health clubs, beauty salons, etc. Consider MindBody’s revenue trends over the past few years:
While MindBody’s revenues are not as big as Google or Facebook, they are growing very strongly and there still larger than Twitter.
Here are the 14 tips that Rick laid out in the SoftwareCEO article.
- It has to be SaaS
- Be prepared for some challenges with SaaS
- If you have the customer base, private equity may be better than VC
- Seek investors who want to collaborate, not dominate
- Aim at a boutique market
- Narrow your sights so you can be a significant player
- Know the related micro-verticals you can expand to
- You can’t beat the big boys, so join them
- A friend may not be your best partner
- Don’t fight in front of the kids
- Price your software low enough to avoid cutbacks
- Publish your customer list
- Use agile development to respond quickly to customer feedback
- To create raving fans, offer your customers concrete business advice
You should click through and read the entire seven page article to get the color commentary on these tips.
Disclosure: I conducted the technical diligence assessment for MindBody’s investors. John Mecke is the Managing Director of DevelopmentCorporate, an Atlanta-based corporate development advisory firm. He blogs primarily at www.developmentcorporate.com.
While not at all scientific, I’ve been talking more to folks doing software product management and I have compiled some near quotes, found some twitter posts and made some of the quotes up. The general theme from folks is that something has to change inside their organization. Everyone’s story is a little different – revenues are up, quality is down, resource reductions goofin up product delivery, profit is down and management expectations are just a little too aggressive for the marketplace. So here are some things I sorta overheard over the past 90 days:
“Yeah so I’m expected to run all strategy, product lines and market facing activities with no direct influence on development and a Sr. Manager title.” – Sr. Product Manager – 12/08/2009 at ~11:30 am
“It’s not like you can assume business as usual” @Brioneja
“So the market is requiring contractual service levels and the customer support folks say that’s unacceptable and aren’t going to do it. Yeah – that should be a CEO level discussion topic.” – Dir, Product Marketing – 12/08/2009 ~1PM
“So I had to spend like 85 person hours of cross-functional time to convince everyone that promotional marketing required a process based approach and why a value/problem based approach was the better idea over offering a 50% discount” – Product Manager – 12/08/2009 6PM
“Dude, I’m so glad I’m a technical product manager – those folks who don’t have a specified role with expectations can’t be having fun. All I have to worry about is exiting the sprint, doing demos and training folks.” – Product Owner – November
“Is it roadmap update season already?” – Product Management Evangelist
“Last time I checked, you have a quota and I have a P&L – we have different time lines on our goals for the business.” VP, Product – October
“I need suggestions for managing ideas from anywhere into, through, and out of the product dev cycle. Software? #prodmgmt” – @DanielRunion
“Just give me the goals, a bunch of poorly written epics and I’ll give you a finely groomed backlog” – Product Owner – November
“Roadmaps are evidence of strategy. Not a list of features.” – Product Management Consultant
“So we are working the third strategic plan of the year, of course you need the next big thing before the first one’s 50% done.” – Product Marketing Manager – Early November
“Going to be tough working there… I’m thinking I can’t triple the product revenue with reduced resources and the same marketing budget the last guy had. Does that make me negative?… Don’t get me wrong, I’m still gonna take the job though.” – Soon to be employed Director of Product Management. – 11/20-ish
“I guess it’s exciting to be in charge of the biggest piece of shit in a dying market” – Dir, Product Management 12/4
“I’ve got 18 months of cost reduction and platform consolidation to wring out profit. Next year’s metric is going to be so easy.” – Sr. Product Manager – 12/13/09 2PM
“Don’t get me wrong, I think big thoughts all day long and I like it, but at some point we need a decision and might just need a little time to build it.” Director of Development – 12/10.
“Is connecting online to Product Managers in your locale important?” @trevorrotzien
“roadmapping session drinking game: drink when you hear the word “refactor”” – @ptyoung
“I just chuckle at my “I see stupid people” coffee mug, I rotate that with my Pragmatic mug – “your opinon although interesting is irrelevant” – the sad thing is no one has called me out on it after 18 months – REALLY?!?!” – Interim Project Manager in search of Product Management Gig – 12/14/09
“I think CEO”s are beginning to think Product Marketing is the new MARCOM.” – Product Marketing Consultant, 11/24
“in an adolescent market, a 1% position is completely unsustainable.” – CrankyPM
