A Geek’s Lens

I returned late last week from the Business of Software conference. The speaker list was a veritable who’s who of experts on the process(es) of creating and managing software/technology companies.

Seth Godin’s presentation touched on many of his classic themes (being remarkable, making ethical use of the permission that your customers give you to talk to them, get product and marketing to match the culture of your company and customers), but I was taken with the sense that it was a massive therapy session for the audience. Much like a good psycho therapist, Seth stood up there and gave the audience permission to forget all of the standard ways in which businesses have made a name for themselves.

Forget traditional marketing.

Forget making a mass market product.

Forget competing through parity.

Having recently taken on the responsibility of “managing” the business of Copilot for Fog Creek, I have found myself falling into the trap of trying to do things the way that other companies or my competitors are doing them. We even tried a traditional marketing campaign this summer. The campaign failed in the sense of spending more money that we got back, but it put me in the right frame of mind to hear what Seth, and others at BoS, had to say about growing a software business. More on adwords later, but for now, let it suffice for me to say that there is a right size for things that you plan to sell through search or content network adverts.

I was shocked at finding myself wanting, or perhaps even needing, permission from someone else to act on my conclusions based on years of experience and my own observations. But there I was, sitting on the proverbial couch with a few hundred other people and nodding my head as Seth said that I should act on those instincts and conclusions, and that my Mom probably did love me after all. It wasn’t the answer to my questions, but it was the invitation I was looking for to throw common wisdom in the trash and try something different, and preferably remarkable.