My particular pet hate - the "verticals". Totally misunderstood and it just makes me cringe. The successful firms in the long term will be the ones who can appeal to the biggest audience (oops - community!).
I believe that the community can find better uses for your products or services and increase sales opportunities than some slick marketing schmoozers so we shouldn't try and limit ourselves to attracting a certain type of customer.
However - here is the catch. The challenge for us small business owners is not spreading ourselves too thin by trying to be all things to all people - so we end up "targeting" "markets". Finding the balance is key and one I am still looking for. As we grow I want to only focus on making our services appeal to the community and believe the sales will follow.
Leaving any technical challenges with setup and support aside, many of my larger clients would be happier to "purchase" software than download it as it is simpler to understand, budget for etc.
Just reading this back to myself makes me think I need to buy some small cardboard boxes, print off a copy of the GPL and shrink wrap the whole lot and "sell" OSS ;-)
Authored Comments
My particular pet hate - the "verticals". Totally misunderstood and it just makes me cringe. The successful firms in the long term will be the ones who can appeal to the biggest audience (oops - community!).
I believe that the community can find better uses for your products or services and increase sales opportunities than some slick marketing schmoozers so we shouldn't try and limit ourselves to attracting a certain type of customer.
However - here is the catch. The challenge for us small business owners is not spreading ourselves too thin by trying to be all things to all people - so we end up "targeting" "markets". Finding the balance is key and one I am still looking for. As we grow I want to only focus on making our services appeal to the community and believe the sales will follow.
Leaving any technical challenges with setup and support aside, many of my larger clients would be happier to "purchase" software than download it as it is simpler to understand, budget for etc.
Just reading this back to myself makes me think I need to buy some small cardboard boxes, print off a copy of the GPL and shrink wrap the whole lot and "sell" OSS ;-)