> Small software businesses are, to borrow a metaphor from DHH, a lot like a local Italian restaurant. Nobody at BigCo wakes up in the morning and says "There i

> Small software businesses are, to borrow a metaphor from DHH, a lot like a local Italian restaurant. Nobody at BigCo wakes up in the morning and says "There is a spaghetti joint in East Phili [+] with revenues of $30k a month? NUKE IT FROM ORBIT IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO BE SURE." It's not the folks at BigCo you need to worry about as the owner of a small software business. It's other small business owners (or would-be small business owners). > Similarly, like spaghetti shops, small software companies do not primarily make money because of "features." The notion that software is bought because of features is something that running a software company will quickly disabuse you of. Feature set is an aspect of "product." The importance of feature set varies from market to market, company to company, but implying that feature set doesn't really influence purchasing decisions is patently silly. As an example, one of my clients sells software to lending institutions. Evaluation of product, and feature set in particular, is critical to the sales cycle for a variety of reasons. One is that in many cases, my client's software will augment or replace existing software and processes at these institutions, so ensuring that they're not losing capabilities is important. Another is that the market is competitive and potential customers are naturally going to compare the functional footprints of the solutions they're evaluating, even if their needs are relatively limited. Most markets worth pursuing are highly competitive today, and companies that assume they don't need to pay too much attention to product because they have customers on lock are likely to find themselves vulnerable.