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I'm curious about how this maps to enterprise products? Can you create an enterprise-targeted product that users truly love? Any examples of this?

pinky07 10y ago
Yes: https://www.Odoo.com https://www.Odoo.com But we did not follow Sam's path. 1/ we made resellers and developers happy (being open source played an important role early on) 2/ we grew 3/ we made end users very happy 4/ we grew much faster The reason we took this part is that it takes a lot of time to both build the enterprise features, and make it great. We built the scope first and made it great after, which is not an usual path. Disclaimer: I am the founder.
- deleted 10y ago
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- statictype 10y ago
  Nice. How do you grow your reseller network? I would presume that reseller's interests don't always align directly with end-user interests?
corbinpage 10y ago
Slack when it first came out. It spread via word of mouth.
beat 10y ago
JIRA would be my example of it. Of course, it seems old and clunky now, but when it first came out, it was a revelation in a world that had been stuck with the likes of Remedy. Salesforce is another example. Again, it seems dated now, but when it first hit the scene, it was seismic. It's actually pretty straightforward to make a loveable product for the enterprise, if only because the pain can be so great. The problem is wading through the sales process.
lunaru 10y ago
The enterprise sales process isn't what it used to be. Before, you had to get an audience with the CIO (or whoever controlled the department budget) to have a chance. The shift has been that employees and individual teams now have a lot of say in what tools they use -- sometimes without the higher-ups knowing about it until it's seen a good amount of adoption amongst internal teams. SaaS with instant access and 0 deploy times makes this possible. Another shift is that employees will now carry their championed products with them from one company to another. In an area like Silicon Valley where job hopping is common, the social/word-of-mouth effects on enterprise software is significant. Slack has already been mentioned and is a prime example of both. With our own "enterprise" product, we're seeing the same -- adoption from teams and employees that eventually can become something more. But, this can only happen if you're resonating with some group of users that love your product.

pinky07 10y ago

Yes: https://www.Odoo.com https://www.Odoo.com But we did not follow Sam's path. 1/ we made resellers and developers happy (being open source played an important role early on) 2/ we grew 3/ we made end users very happy 4/ we grew much faster The reason we took this part is that it takes a lot of time to both build the enterprise features, and make it great. We built the scope first and made it great after, which is not an usual path. Disclaimer: I am the founder.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
statictype 10y ago
Nice. How do you grow your reseller network? I would presume that reseller's interests don't always align directly with end-user interests?

corbinpage 10y ago

Slack when it first came out. It spread via word of mouth.

beat 10y ago

JIRA would be my example of it. Of course, it seems old and clunky now, but when it first came out, it was a revelation in a world that had been stuck with the likes of Remedy. Salesforce is another example. Again, it seems dated now, but when it first hit the scene, it was seismic. It's actually pretty straightforward to make a loveable product for the enterprise, if only because the pain can be so great. The problem is wading through the sales process.

lunaru 10y ago

The enterprise sales process isn't what it used to be. Before, you had to get an audience with the CIO (or whoever controlled the department budget) to have a chance. The shift has been that employees and individual teams now have a lot of say in what tools they use -- sometimes without the higher-ups knowing about it until it's seen a good amount of adoption amongst internal teams. SaaS with instant access and 0 deploy times makes this possible. Another shift is that employees will now carry their championed products with them from one company to another. In an area like Silicon Valley where job hopping is common, the social/word-of-mouth effects on enterprise software is significant. Slack has already been mentioned and is a prime example of both. With our own "enterprise" product, we're seeing the same -- adoption from teams and employees that eventually can become something more. But, this can only happen if you're resonating with some group of users that love your product.