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