SIC2009
Andy Brice
Oryx Digital Ltd
http://www.successfulsoftware.net
A quick dash through ten mistakes I have seen µISVs
make (including myself)
 Questions at the end
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Writing software professionally since 1987
Full-time µISV since Jan 2005
 product: www.perfecttableplan.com
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Consultant to µISVs
 specialising in one day consultations to help µISVs,
especially with marketing and usability
 Blog: www.successfulsoftware.net
 Email: [email protected]
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The customer cares about whether you solve their
problem
 They are a lot less interested in whether you do it in
Silverlight or C
 Starting with a solution and then working back to a
problem is clearly sub-optimal
The answer is not always
“more code”!
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Everything in the product should be informed by
marketing decisions, including:
 Features implemented
 Platforms supported
 Aesthetics
 Type of user interface
 Licensing
 Trial restrictions
 Segmentation (e.g. ‘lite’ and ‘pro’ editions)
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So make the marketing decisions first!
µISVs have limited resources and it is essential to
focus them
 With focus your product is easier to develop, easier
to market and has less competition
 You should be able to describe what it does in one
sentence
 Even small niches can be profitable
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 There are over a billion people on the
Internet!
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Your website must make it clear what your product
does in a few seconds
 Add a big, unambiguous statement of what it does at the
top (‘strapline’)
 Move large chunks of text to
separate pages
 Less is more
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Tell them what to do next
Subtlety is overrated, be bold
Download Now
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Organic search is the best possible promotion
 Targeted
 Free!
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Do basic on-page SEO
 Page Titles, Page names, Meta tags, H1s, Image titles, etc.
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Write good content
Avoid snake-oil salesmen
Don’t use Adwords unless you are prepared to learn
the rules and do a lot of tweaking
 Make sure you at least understand:
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 search ads vs content ads
 broad vs phrase vs exact match
 negative keywords
 geographic targeting
 A/B testing of ads
Start with a small daily
budget
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People are much more likely to make a decision if
they know it is reversible
 Refunds don’t cost anything apart from time
(through PayPal, anyway)
 Customers can get a refund anyway (chargeback),
so you might as well offer one
 Show the guarantee prominently
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The only sure way to know if your product will
succeed is to release it
 Advantages of releasing early:
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Feedback
Cashflow
Motivation
Failing faster
Disadvantages of releasing early:
 A lot less than you might think
If you aren’t embarrassed by v1.0,
you didn’t release it early enough
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You never get a second chance to make a good first
impression
 First 5 minutes is crucial
 Your competitor is only a few clicks away
 Usability testing is easy (but painful!)
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 Well explained by Krug in his
“Don’t make me think” book
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Many of these mistakes are relatively easy to fix,
but:
 We are often too close our products to see the problems
ourselves
 None of these problems can be solved by adding more
features!
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Many of these topics are (or will be) covered in more
depth on my blog:
 www.successfulsoftware.net
 [email protected]