How to fight the big fish
This is an SaaS post for all the smaller players. Now that Services are shifting into second gear, the bigger players start to extend their offerings from web apps to web platforms. With there burgeoning users base they can actually start pushing the smaller players around or at least apply pain on their pressure points. So I figured I should start the open conversation around some strategy to help fend of the big guns:
- The obvious one - continue to be nimble, out think them, listener more attentively and innovate more quickly.
- Form partnerships with the other smaller players to help create a bonded services eco system,
- Excel at what you do, don't be a jack of all trades and be passionate about it
- Stay open, use APIs, encourage mashups, don't try to be come a platform, thats what the big players do and it traps in their user base. Offer a better alternative to this, provide real choice and competition the market will benefit from it and it will grow in response.
- Don't ever give up, be tenacious, work with your customers find out what they really need and give it to them. Don't just think about what your service offers, think about how it can dovetail with others to create more than the sum value.
Of course I maybe teaching Grandma to suck eggs here, but I don't see enough of this happening, I worry that the big guns are going to find it all to easy, come on folks work it.. how do you win this battle for the hearts an minds of the participants heading for the SaaS sluice gates. If you work together then you may get their attention before they hit the feeding grounds where the sharks lie in wait.
Idea for this list?
* Update I just thought of two more that could be added :
- From Dennis - Unify your pricing, make it work with other services so it can be combined sensibly, work out how mixed service pricing should look.
- Use back ends like Amazons S3 and EC2 that may help fend of the criticisms around infrastructure and longevity vs the big fish.