2 ms·

Great analogy! Elephants=Enterprises. Rabbits=Consumers. Deer=Small & Midsize Businesses. The problem of servicing customers of greatly varying size is not

by edw519 17y ago

Great analogy! Elephants=Enterprises. Rabbits=Consumers. Deer=Small & Midsize Businesses. The problem of servicing customers of greatly varying size is not just one of scale. It means that you're in a different business. I have avoided enterprises because great software doesn't matter. You're playing a different game. I've also avoided the consumer market because it's also a different animal. Scaling and capitalization are at least as important as the application itself. The small and mid-market has always been my sweet spot. They have money to spend and needs sophisticated enough to warrant great software. I never thought about the animal/customer size model, but it paints a much clearer picture of the dilemma. Thanks, OP.

mattmanser 17y ago
Rabbits != Consumers, he says rabbit hunters are 37signals and outright.com which seem to be aimed at micro and small business. To an extent small business fall into deer, but I'd guess only the 30+, hence the 'deer can change your t&c' which isn't worth it for a really small business. Unfortunately he says absolutely nothing about deer apart from waxing lyrical about how they're great. Given that he only gives examples of elephants and rabbits, one wonders if he's yet to find the pain of working with deer? Having worked in a company that targeted the 'deer' it's not as easy as he makes it sound, generally you start having to customise your product per customer and also implementation is non-trivial meaning consultants & some sort of training, which is a major hinderence to scalability and you still need to get past the board which means a face-to-face sales force. They'll also be at the size where they might have their own IT guys and man a lot of them are incompetent & usually a barrier to sale ('mmm, I'm not sure whether that's compatible with our special gerzambi-thingy' - i.e. more work for me? no thanks).
- wheels 17y ago
  I can put this in really concrete terms based on how we broke this down, and why this article really resounded with me: The US economic census (a great market research resource) breaks things down into groups of: 0-4 employees, 5-9, 10-19, 20-99, 100-499, 500+ The sweet spot seems to be the 20-99 group both in terms of the number of them and their operation budgets (i.e. they exist), probably have some basically technically competent people on board, and don't expect (and aren't willing to pay for) a high degree of customization. "Rabits" (sites in the 0-9 employees) often don't have any money to spend and are a crapshoot as to whether or not they have even moderate tech teams. A good half of them require extensive hand-holding with the prospect of pulling in a few bucks a month. So in general, we'll set up accounts for sites in that size, but don't do much support. "Elephants" tend to also require a lot of hand-holding -- not because they don't have good tech teams, but because they have specialized requirements. They also typically have slow decision making processes, usually involving several meetings, conference calls, etc. and the really big sites, especially when dealing with a small startup, are usually more interested in buying your company than buying your product.

by edw519 17y ago

mattmanser 17y ago

Rabbits != Consumers, he says rabbit hunters are 37signals and outright.com which seem to be aimed at micro and small business. To an extent small business fall into deer, but I'd guess only the 30+, hence the 'deer can change your t&c' which isn't worth it for a really small business. Unfortunately he says absolutely nothing about deer apart from waxing lyrical about how they're great. Given that he only gives examples of elephants and rabbits, one wonders if he's yet to find the pain of working with deer? Having worked in a company that targeted the 'deer' it's not as easy as he makes it sound, generally you start having to customise your product per customer and also implementation is non-trivial meaning consultants & some sort of training, which is a major hinderence to scalability and you still need to get past the board which means a face-to-face sales force. They'll also be at the size where they might have their own IT guys and man a lot of them are incompetent & usually a barrier to sale ('mmm, I'm not sure whether that's compatible with our special gerzambi-thingy' - i.e. more work for me? no thanks).

wheels 17y ago
I can put this in really concrete terms based on how we broke this down, and why this article really resounded with me: The US economic census (a great market research resource) breaks things down into groups of: 0-4 employees, 5-9, 10-19, 20-99, 100-499, 500+ The sweet spot seems to be the 20-99 group both in terms of the number of them and their operation budgets (i.e. they exist), probably have some basically technically competent people on board, and don't expect (and aren't willing to pay for) a high degree of customization. "Rabits" (sites in the 0-9 employees) often don't have any money to spend and are a crapshoot as to whether or not they have even moderate tech teams. A good half of them require extensive hand-holding with the prospect of pulling in a few bucks a month. So in general, we'll set up accounts for sites in that size, but don't do much support. "Elephants" tend to also require a lot of hand-holding -- not because they don't have good tech teams, but because they have specialized requirements. They also typically have slow decision making processes, usually involving several meetings, conference calls, etc. and the really big sites, especially when dealing with a small startup, are usually more interested in buying your company than buying your product.