09/15/2006
I've been blocked in these months. Holidays before and some health problems later jeopardized my efforts. I'm going up to speed now and I'll be back soon.
08/10/2006
So what should a lightweight CRM address?
A lightweight CRM should focus on a number of tasks quite common on small businesses, and sort out some issues that are used to make a knowledge worker waste time. Below, I discuss some of them.
1) The "where did I put the file" syndrome. It is quite common to forget where a doc or an xls has been saved or moved. The system should help to keep track of all the relevant files and categorize them.
2) Too often important data are kept on Excel lists on different files. All those stay separated and live indipendently and can not be joined or merged. There should be a way to aggregate them, store them, and generate different lists from them. This should allow an integrated management of customers, and multiple segmentation by real, live, data.
3) The complexity of maintaining a to-do list is often underestimated because the task are much more than those that come to mind at first thought. There is a myryad of small tasks to accomplish, and also there are deadlines to be met. Something that coul allow to navigate gently among those should be of help.
4) Documents are often the same. A quotation is often a rechewing of the previous one. Something that could automate that process would be of great help to salespeople. Something that could calculate the price based on whatever data price may be calculated against could also help.
to be continued...
07/20/2006
So what kind of CRM?
I've been asked to detail my choice a bit more.
There are countless pieces of CRM software, from Sugar to Siebel, from Microsoft to SAP, passing through midrange solutions like SalesLogix or Terrasoft and total web hosted solutions like Salesforce.com. Each one has its own strenghts and weaknesses and they feature an incredibly vast range of functions. Each one has some peculiarity that distinguish it from the others.
So what can I create that does not copy something else? The idea came from a number of considerations.
1) everybody uses MS Office.
2) everybody pays A LOT for MS Office and uses only a fraction of its amazing features.
3) many crms are plainly data entry applications.
4) small businesses have MS Office but nothing else (beside some accounting applications, maybe).
5) small businesses are small but this does not automatically means simple.
This brought me to gradually define the idea for an application.
In short, it may be describe in this way:
"A MS Office based CRM, built around Access, Excel and Word. It will focus on ease of use, very light initial configuration, strong integration with Word and Excel, intuitive business ruling."
This is OK, but what kind of problems should it address? See you next time
06/24/2006
Which kind of software?
What are the criteria that lead to the choice if a specific piece of software? What category of software should I enter?
1: I realized that' I do not wont to be the next Microsoft (or Oracle, or Intuit...maybe the next FogCreek). For me is enough to earn a comfortable living and grow slowly (let's say in 10 years) to somewhat between 50 and 100 people (10 to 20 millions euros); I can not see further.
Provided this, it is more sensible to enter as a minor player in an already developed market segment than gambling on something original. This provides also a competition to benchmark against.
2:I must deal with something I know very well about or I can learn quickly. This let me focus on business market (I'd have addressed it anyway, that's where the big money is...) but not IT related. I'm a consultant with strong programming and database skills, so it's easier for me to model a process than develop a complex class framework.
In the latest years I dealt with Forecast and Budgeting, CRM and mainly Business Intelligence.
Forecast and Budgeting: way to complex to implement because Excel+Sharepoint works well up to a point where you need to be very very complex to offer something better; plus this is a market only for medium-large companyes that often require a lot of customization and consulting.
Business Intelligence: it is hard to beat BusinessObjects or QLik or Oracle Discoverer or Hyperion or whatever of the other dozen of fine BI suites at their game. The level of software maturity in this market is so high that, albeit fragmented, it will crush you. Plus again, a lot of customization and consulting is always required.
CRM: here the outlook seems better. The market is highly fragmented, prices vary from Free to kEUR per user. There is not a technology of choice (desktop apps, web based self hosted, pure web based, Linux, Windows etc.). Also small businesses may benefit from CRM and many chose to use one.
This really seems the way to go.
06/17/2006
Why an ISV?
First of all, why an ISV and not any other form of business?
Well, I'm an engineer (5 years italian course, equivalent to first two US academic grades) and I've been working on IT related matters for all my career. That's the one thing I'm able to do and what I love to do. So there's no way that I can target a totally different field.
Why ISV and not Consulting, then?
Because software scales extremely well, and even a one-man show can achieve remarkable results. Being a consultant I'll be stuck in the same mud like today. I'll have to act like a good business-man, with suit and neck-tie on, and that's what I hate.
I'll keep my daily job while developing the product and setting up all the assets required. I do not exclude to consult a bit to enhance my feeling of indipendence, but the target remains a shrinwrap software company.
06/11/2006
So, I wanna be an entrepreneur
Why? This story goes back to a couple of years ago. At that time, layoffs wind began to blow in my beloved company ( an Italian susidiary of a large, French, multinational company). I made the mistake to give my best to the company and they thanked me by cancelling all my positions. No one told me to leave, but I was silently explained that I had better to resign.
I felt a strong delusion and I realized that I was tired. I was tired of lacking control of my life. I was tired of compressed timetables. I was tired of not being allowed to speak freely. I was tired of company environment.
Though, for lack of courage, urge to switch, habit, I looked for another job, which I found quite easily. I earn a bit more, projects may be interesting, the environment is less prestigious albeit friendly, but I'm still unsatisified. Looking back to that time, I realize that something broke, and it's still broken. Anyway, as usual, I strived to do my best with the new job.
What made me take the final decision, happened on Valentine's day, 2006. I had an hearth attack; a strong one. I'm here only because doctor have been very fast.
That was the point of no return.
My job almost killed me, I'll not give it a second chance.
I will remove the stress removing the job. I'll work for myself from now on.
Well, not exactly now, because by coincidence, I'm buying an house, a nice mansion. So I can not quit right now because otherwise I'll not be cleared for the mortgage. The house will be ready by the end of September. Just the time to relocate and after I will have enough room to manoeuvre.
Of course, I'm not sitting here without doing anything. I did a lot, in fact. And I'll let you know soon.
06/09/2006
Ok, at last I took a decision.
I'm going to keep a diary of my decision to start an ISV. I've seen so many benefits deriving from keeping a diary on the entrepreneurial adventures of software startups to ignore this simple form of online communication. Even Poldina has offered her full support to this adventure.
More, I think that telling my story to some other people will erase my procrastination habits
But probably, you'll want to know something about myself before...
To Be Continued...