Innovation in Software

On the GeekUp mailing list, some business development advice was being asked for in terms of growing revenues and finding sales channels.

The advice being offered was to specialise: choose a niche and excel within it. Good advice, but the recipient started talking about the problems that come with specialising in CakePHP – a technology framework for rapid development of web applications – and I felt compelled to chip in with advice I think might be worthy of putting to a wider audience:

Don’t get caught in the trap of thinking specialisation means technology specialisation.

Business people don’t know about CakePHP. They know about e-Commerce, or customer forums, or customised marketing emails, or intranets where employees share knowledge.

Talk in their language, not yours.

When I go out and do sales, I talk about using Agile methodologies, iterative development, growing the technology base as revenue and budget allow. We use methods that ensure desired behaviour is captured and tested against cheaply, so changes in business assumptions are cheap to re-factor in the code – i.e. we reduce the cost of change to as close to zero as possible.

They couldn’t give a stuff what I’m actually saying is “we code Ruby on Rails with Cucumber, Culerity and RSpec tests”, because that doesn’t mean anything to them.

So, follow the market specialisation, not the technology specialisation when you speak to clients. Sure, choose the tech you like working with, but talk to your clients in terms of eCommerce stores, bold new ideas, e-mail marketing or super-slick brochureware sites as part of marketing campaigns.

Same as with selling anything: you sell benefits, not features*

All the big agencies I’ve seen thrive have chosen this style. The small guys seem to bang on about technology (or even worse “we only use GNU/Linux tools in production of your website”), and being able to do “anything” and get frustrated when people aren’t lining up at the door – the clients who like those shops generally aren’t the ones most of us want anyway.

* Before somebody points out that some gadgets “sell” on feature lists, that’s not what’s happening. When I say “this camera has triple 15 megapixel CCD sensors”, you might think I’m selling a feature. I know though that a geek who is into this price niche will likely transfer that feature in their head into “I can take really sharp pictures with good natural colour definition pictures with that camera”. I sold you a benefit via your own knowledge of the possibilities of the feature. :-)

It seems obvious, but most people miss it. Talking in the language of technology and features is a mistake I made for several years and am still struggling to deal with as I develop my new marketing material. The simple truth is, if they knew what all this BDD and Agile stuff was and why it was so good, they probably wouldn’t need our services. Now all I want to talk about when doing sales is business problems, issues and ideas and how to address them. Take heed, young grasshopper.

About 3 years ago a prospective client came to Vagueware and said he wanted to build an online dating site. Not a bad business decision given that the niche is now closing in on $1 billion in revenues per year, and with more than 20 million paying customers visiting a dating site every month.

However, where there’s money, there’s competition. My client asked me to go around all the sites I could find with different models and evaluate them. He paid for the accounts and some of my time, I gave him a report.

I actually got a girlfriend for a while out of that experience. If you’re ever offered a similar gig and you’re single, take it! I still don’t know if I was meant to declare her on my  taxes…

Anyway, a few conversations over the last few months have prompted me to re-think my analysis of the sector at the time. Not least, one of my ex-colleagues is behind the scenes at Smeet Me which allows for singles (or couples) who know each other in real life to flirt anonymously in order to see if there is chemistry there.

It’s a really interesting take on online dating. Typically if you like somebody in real life, you already know something about them but you just don’t know whether to risk asking them out – something smeetme could potentially help offset.

The games are quite simple tasks designed to promote the flirtatiousness of the situation: you set a series of challenges such as making a video or audio clip, providing an extract of a favourite poem or book, pointing to a video online that makes you laugh, take a quiz, etc. And as the recipient completes each stage they get a reward: a picture or video, an invitation to an event or even a gift.

The same underlying engine could be used by marketeers for viral ad campaigns where you want to promote interactivity, but I love the idea that they decided to try it with the dating scene first. The ability to print out unique codes onto business cards and hand them out in clubs could allow for it to go viral, quite quickly.

This all assumes of course, you’ve met somebody and have the ability to ask them to play your game. However, how do you go about meeting people in the first place if you’re a social pariah?

Traditionally online dating has had the flaw people may be lying about who they are or what they are. Sites that have basic profile information – in my analysis – were ultimately going to lead to a lot of resentment because they made it so easy for people to misrepresent themselves. These sites make up the bulk of online dating sites, including many of the branded sites that are almost certainly being driven by WhiteLabelDating.com or one of their competitors.

There are however a couple of sites that did things a little differently, and made it virtually impossible to pretend to be something you aren’t.

The first is OK Cupid, which is 100% free but does take some time to get into. To be frank, give yourself an hour or two to build up a profile in there. The wonderful thing is though, the simple mathematics of how it works means it becomes uncannily good at matching people up. I spent several months hanging out with a girl from “OKC” (as its fans like to call it), and within half an hour of our first meeting it was obvious that our sense of humour clicked, our values were similar, and that we were two people who liked each other.

For me, on finding OKC and evaluating it, it was game over.  I told my client to give up unless he was going to reinvent it. The only flaw in the model is that right now it’s way too US-centric.

Since then though, a few other models have sprung up, with perhaps the most interesting being eHarmony and their “personality profiling” system. It seems rather over-burdening to go through dozens of questions, but the result is relatively accurate from what I’ve seen. It suggested I, for example, normally take care of other people, am curious, “sometimes steady, sometimes responsive”, flexible and sometimes outgoing and reserved at other times. Quite vague stuff really, but it’s not how many people would perceive me unless they’d known me for a while.

One other notable site in the “traditional” market is My Single Friend which is heavily promoted as being owned by Sarah Beeney who has spent much of the last decade convincing people to risk their entire savings on property development. Hmmm.

The great thing about MSF is that because its friends who are providing the review, you know the person you’re seeing probably isn’t a stalker and slasher. Sure, they could have created a free webmail account and written their own review, but in 99% of cases you’ll spot that a mile off. The only downside is if you asked me to write up a review of you on there, would I really point out you seem to belch an awful lot, and quite frankly you get a bit over-whelming after a couple of drinks? Probably not. It’s all upside, but at least it’s honest and perceived upside there.

The rest of the sites out there, to be honest, should be given a bit of a wide berth. Yes, there are exceptions. I know people who have found somebody on other sites, but they seem few and far between given the number of people paying to use them. As we say in geek circles, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), but good luck with whoever you go with.

And seriously, if there is somebody you like out there in real life, think about setting up a game in Smeet Me and trying it out – there are a couple of games in there that aren’t too challenging, and right now it’s quirky and fresh enough that people will think you’re interesting and on the cutting edge of online stuff.