Going From SaaS Product Idea to Paying Customers in Under 6 Months (WEBINAR)

When: September 25th, 2009 at 1:00PM EDT
Where: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/699341779

This will be a great event. You’ll have an opportunity to hear from Nate Rowe, CEO of Appoint IT, who recently launched their product offering, and was able to go from a product idea to paying SaaS customers in under 6 months by leveraging the SaaSGrid SaaS Application Server.

You’ll also get a chance to hear from Luis Aburto, CEO of Scio Consulting, and myself. It will be a great discussion, and you’ll see why SaaSGrid is quickly becoming the solution of choice for ISVs large and small as they make the move to SaaS.

You can find out more details about the event, and register https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/699341779.

“How to Fail Miserably as a Cloud Software Provider” (NETWORKING EVENT)

When: September 22th, 2009 at 6:00PM EDT
Where: Public House, New York City (Lex/3rd)

This will also be a great event, and an opportunity to network with some movers and shakers in the SaaS and Cloud Computing space here in New York. You’ll also have an opportunity to hear from Apprenda CEO Sinclair Schuller, and he’ll be delivering a presentation entitled: How to Fail Miserably as a Cloud Software Provider”. If you’re in the area or can be, you won’t want to miss it!

You can find out more and let us know you’re coming here. We hope many of you can join us!

- Jesse

Sorry for the LONG period of inactivity.  Things have been extremly busy here at Apprenda.  We launched SaaSGrid for general availability back in the begining of December, and the response has been phenominal.

Let me try and explain to you in a nutshell what SaaSGrid is, and why it’s game changing:

SaaSGrid is a true cloud operating system. It’s not a software application, with some plugins.  It’s not a virtualization technology.  It’s not a full closed stack cloud offering. (Apprenda does not host SaaSGrid) 

It’s not like anything else on the market today.

SaaSGrid is the real deal.  It is a truly groundbreaking technology offering that allows companies to move their existing .NET based applications to a pure SaaS model, or build new SaaS applications without having to expend any effort on the SaaS specific architecture (ie: multitenancy, scalability, etc) OR the SaaS specific business components that they need to run THEIR business. (ie: billing, metering, provisioning, etc).

Much like the desktop operating system catalyzed a new era of software innovation, SaaSGrid is doing the same thing.  By providing a new layer of abstraction that contains all of the mission critical “SaaS DNA” so to speak, software companies can once again focus on writing great software and not having to worry about the intracacies of the delivery method.

If you are an existing .NET ISV, or someone looking to develop a new SaaS offering with any of the .NET languages, you absolutely owe it to yourself to check out SaaSGrid.

Starting tomorrow, November 6th, I will no longer be Autotask’s Community Evangelist.  I’m extremely excited to be joining Apprenda as Director of Business Development. The work that Apprenda is doing is game changing, and there is no place I’d rather be at this point in my career.

I’ve been with Autotask for 2.5 years now, and it’s been an awesome ride.

Just over a year ago we launched the Autotask CommunITy, which originated as a “skunkworks” project of mine.   From the initial idea, to its conception and continued improvement, the Autotask CommunITy has been my full time responsibility at Autotask for the last year.   In that time, it has grown incredibly into a thriving community of over 13,000 members and has radically impacted the way Autotask as a company operates.  To cap it off, last night we were awarded a coveted ITSMA Marketing Excellence Award, specifically for the work we’ve done with the Autotask CommunITy.  That honor is just as much the claim of the thousands of brilliant IT professionals that make up the Autotask CommunITy, as it is any of ours.

In addition to the Autotask CommunITy, I was also able to help Autotask launch its product on the global market back in 2006 (my first project).  Then in early 2007, I was able to help introduce Autotask’s first mobile solution (Autotask LiveMobile).  I’m extremely thankful for the work I’ve been able to do with Autotask over the course of the last 2.5 years.  It’s been challenging, fulfilling and rewarding.  As their 65th employee back in 2006, they’ve now grown to over 130 people, and last week were awarded the New York Capital Region’s Best Places To Work award for the 5th straight year!  No other company has ever received the award so many years in a row, and it’s really a testament to the great people that I’ve had the pleasure of working with there for the past 2.5 years.

I want to thank all of my co-workers at Autotask, and all of the members of the Autotask CommunITy for such a wonderful experience.  I could name names and go on for pages thanking individuals, but I’ve made it a point to personally speak with many of you already.

Thank you all, and best wishes for continued success.

Today Freshbooks announced that they will be publishing aggregate benchmark data on a quarterly basis. They’ve been sending out this data and more to customers for some time now, but now they’re going to publish some of the data to the general public.

Check it out, and if you are a SaaS company, take note and learn from these guys. They get it, and they continue to come up with creative ways to leverage the delivery method.

Great product, great company, great service. I can’t say enough about these guys!

Here are a few additional posts of mine about Freshbooks:

Freshbooks – SaaS Through and Through
Freshbooks = Awesome

Aside from their product being awesome, I also love the company culture that comes across in their blog and in this great video from standoutjobs.com:

They just do so many things right. Here’s the latest example.

At the recent How Design Conference they actually had a Freshbooks user hand paint and design their exhibit booth on the show floor, while the show was going on. Check it out:

Check out the full details here on the Freshbooks blog.

Great, great stuff guys!  This really blew me away.

Treb, this one’s going down to the wire…and I’m a professional ebay “sniper”.

Kidding… I just thought this was pretty funny.

For far too long, business applications have been built for businesses, not for the people in the businesses that use them.

Rather than approaching the design with the goal of enabling the best, most enjoyable experience for the individual, many ISVs have kept their designs inside the box, and focused solely on the needs of the business.

I may be missing something (and I’m sure I’ve not seen nearly everything), but I’ve yet to see an application that really breaks the mold. One that presents data in a totally new way, or enables a totally new experience for the user. Or one that incorporates some level of fun and enjoyment in the mundane tasks of creating service tickets, accounts, invoices, activity notes, meetings…etc.

If we look at sites/apps such as facebook, twitter, youtube and others, the sites that’s user bases have grown virally at an incredible pace, the three words that immediately come to mind are: personal, networked, and addictive

Personal – All of the above sites present information to the user that is personal and important to the individual user. This is similar to dashboards we see in many business apps. However, that is one single place in the application that is personal. Some applications also provide themes, but not to the extent that some of the social networkings sites provide customization of the overall look.

Networked – All of the above are web based applications, that leverage their network of users to create their core value. This is something I’ve written about in the past, and now Salesforce is just beginning to take this to the next level with their new Salesforce-to-Salesforce capabilities.

Addictive – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… they are all addictive. They have something that makes people want to use them. However, that something can be different for different people, but I venture to say that what ever that something is, it is a direct result of those applications leveraging the network of users as the underlying core value of their offering.

Aside from Salesforce’s recent moves, another great example that is more on the design side is Entellium, and their Rave CRM product. Paul Johnston, Entellium’s CEO talks about the “Gamer Influenced Design” approach here on his blog.

Phil Wainewright also talks about Rave, and the concept of gaming elements applied to business software here.

I’d love to hear what others think, and if you can point me in the direction of some applications that you think are truly breaking the mold, I’d greatly appreciate it.

This is definitely something I would love to see.  With companies like Netsuite, and Successfactors teed up to for their IPOs, and others like Constant Contact having recently completed theirs, there are a great number of SaaS companies that together would make a great fund.

Here’s another great article on the topic of SaaS IPO’s by Chris Cabrera, CEO of Xactly.  Xactly is another SaaS company that would be a fine addition to a SaaS mutual fund once they go public.

I just sold my Salesforce.com (CRM) stock for a large gain… someone get moving on this.

This could be huge for Coghead, depending on the true depth of the partnership.

As mentioned before by Sinclair over at SaaSBlogs, telcos could play a huge role in driving SaaS adoption. Smart SaaS ISV’s should be looking today, to partner with telcos in new and innovative ways.

If SaaS ISV’s think of their applications as the services that they are, telecommunications companies provide the “pipes” that their services are delivered through.

Telcos also have relationships with VARs, IT Service providers, customers and potential customers of ISVs, both through the services they are already delivering to them (internet access, telephone service, etc.), as well as the services that they are delivering to ISV’s customers’ customers (whether at the business or consumer level).

Coghead being a toolkit and environment for developers to build applications with, can now provide additional incentive to would be developers. That incentive being the immediate access to a significant sales and marketing channel via BT. Again, the level of access will depend on the depth of the partnership that BT and Coghead develop.

I’ll be interested to see where they take this partnership.

I expect we will begin see more partnerships like this one, and the Jamcracker XO partnership announced earlier this year.

Thoughts?