| At APconnections, our flagship product, | | | | |
| NetEqualizer, is a traffic management and WAN | | | | The transition from open source users to |
| optimization tool. Rather than using | | | | paying customers is a big jump, requiring |
| compression and caching techniques, | | | | traditional sales and marketing. Don't expect |
| NetEqualizer analyzes connections and then | | | | your loyal base of open source beta users to |
| doles out bandwidth to them based on preset | | | | start paying for your product. We use |
| rules. We look at every connection on the | | | | testimonials from this critical mass of users |
| network and compare it to the overall trunk | | | | to market to paying customers who are |
| size to determine how to eliminate congestion | | | | reluctant to be early adopters (see below). |
| on the links. NetEqualizer also prevents | | | | |
| peer-to-peer traffic from slowing down | | | | Channels? Use Direct Selling and the Web |
| higher-priority application traffic without | | | | |
| shutting down those connections. | | | | Our innovation is a bit of a stretch from |
| | | | existing products and, like most innovations, |
| When we started the company, we had lots of | | | | requires some education of the user. Much of |
| time, very little cash, some software | | | | the early advice we received related to |
| development skills, and a technology idea. | | | | picking a sales channel. Just signup reps, |
| This article covers a couple of bootstrapping | | | | resellers, and distributors and revenues will |
| pearls that we learned to implement by doing. | | | | grow. |
| | | | |
| Don't be Afraid to Use Open Source | | | | We found the exact opposite to be true. |
| | | | Priming channels is expensive. And, after we |
| Using open source technology to develop and | | | | pointed the sales channel at customers, |
| commercialize new application software can be | | | | closing the sale and supporting the customer |
| an invaluable bootstrapping tool for startup | | | | fell back on us anyway. Direct selling is not |
| entrepreneurs. It has allowed us to validate | | | | the path to rapid growth. But as a |
| new technology with a willing set of early | | | | bootstrapping tool direct selling has |
| adopters who, in turn, provided us with | | | | rewarded us with loyal customers, better |
| references and debugging. | | | | margins, and many fewer returns. |
| | | | |
| We used this huge number of early adopters, | | | | We use the Internet to generate hot leads, |
| who love to try open source applications, to | | | | but we don't worry about our Google ranking. |
| legitimize our application. Further, this | | | | They key for us is to get every satisfied |
| large set of commercial "installs" helped us | | | | customer to post something about our product. |
| ring out many of the bugs by users who have | | | | It probably hasn't improved our Google |
| no grounds to demand perfection. | | | | ratings but customer comments have surely |
| | | | improved our credibility. |
| In addition, we jump-started our products | | | | |
| without incurring large development expense. | | | | Honest postings to blogs and user groups have |
| We used open source by starting with | | | | significant influence on potential customers. |
| technology already in place and extending it, | | | | We explain to each customer how important |
| rather than building (or licensing) every | | | | their posting is to our company. We often |
| piece from scratch. | | | | provide them with a link to a user group or |
| | | | appropriate blog. And, as you know, these |
| Using open source code makes at least a | | | | blogs stay around forever. Then, when we |
| portion of our technology publicly available. | | | | encounter new potential customers, we suggest |
| We use bundling, documentation, and | | | | that they Google our "brand name" and blog, |
| proprietary extensions to make it difficult | | | | which always generates a slew of believable |
| for larger players to steal our thunder. | | | | testimonials (Check out our Web site to see |
| These will account for over half of | | | | some of the ways they use testimonials). |
| development work but can be protected by | | | | |
| copyright. | | | | Using open source code and direct sales are |
| | | | surely out-of-step with popular ideas for |
| Afraid of copycats? In many cases, nothing | | | | growing technology companies, especially |
| could be better than to have a large player | | | | those funded by equity investors. But they |
| copy you. Big players value time to market. | | | | worked very well for us as we grew our |
| If one player clones your work, another may | | | | company with limited resources to positive |
| acquire your company to catch up in the | | | | cash flow and beyond. |
| market. | | | | |