Starting a software company today is very different than it was 15 years ago. The fundamental reason for this is that mega-vendors now exist across all product ranges. For any product you can think of there is already a mega-vendor in the space delivering it in the cloud. This means if you want to start a software business now you have to do it differently. If I was starting out today, there are three things I would do.
Awards are great. They’re a little piece of recognition for all the work you’ve put into something. Whether it’s a big name attached to the award, like Gartner or BARC, or a lesser-known name, every award says something about the business given it. And Yellowfin was just awarded three by FinancesOnline - the Supreme Software award, Expert’s Choice award, and the Great User Experience certificate. So what do they say about this organization?
It was easy to start a software company 15 years ago. There was a huge transformation from desktop to the cloud and that created an opportunity for any vendor to establish their place at the table offering cloud-based software. But it’s now more difficult to create new products that are significant and compete because we have mega-vendors in the cloud. The days of being able to bring a really significant product to market are over.
Business users haven’t adopted the dashboard wholeheartedly. Some of that is history, some of that is data illiteracy, and some of that is the fault of dashboard platforms themselves - how and who they’re designed for.
One of the challenges with being a fast-growing SaaS vendor is that you're so consumed with running your business that you're unlikely to stop and take a breath. If you’re growing quickly, there can also be a perception that you don’t really need to look at what’s happening in your business. Instead, you may divert resources to building a new product or marketing rather than actually thinking about your business.
Presentations. Slide decks. Do these words elicit yawns? Even if they do, we all know that presentations are central in the business world for keeping people up to date and informed of organizational progress and changes. One of the frequently used presentation formats is the end of month/quarterly update that is full of numbers and charts. But putting data in your presentations presents some issues.
This year has been a really terrific one for Yellowfin. The highlight for me was having an ‘aha’ moment where I could really understand our value proposition and see what we offer our customers. This may sound odd, but I think we’ve made a complete step-change in the way we think about our organization this year.
