Friday 6 May 2011

Month 9: Early adopters versus later arrivals

Weyhay! This month's blog is a guest appearance from the head honcho himself; Mike. Now, we all know he's a little businessy, so be prepared for some straight business talkin'. To lighten the mood a little, please enjoy the lovely retro summer photo from our window at Savvy Towers, and reminisce about your long hot summers as a child playing in the streets and the local woods. Nice.


Hi,

With sales having been hotting up in the last few months but still being relatively young as a business, we had an age-old dilemma regarding focussing our attention. Do we build and work to gain new clients or do we focus on support for existing users?

Our decision was the latter. The reason we think this is right for us now is that we are still building anyway and those that have made the commitment with us early deserve the best and greatest element of our attention.

Our business success is linked directly to our users success (deliberately so) so we must pay particular attention to their needs beyond anyone who might use our system if, when and maybe. In addition to this, there is no substitute for learning, changing and building based on real live usage, therefore the outcomes for these live clients are better and the knock-on is that we establish an enhanced product for future users anyway so it becomes a win-win.

Where you focus your own attention is linked to what phase you are at within your business lifecycle but is a decision you need to make. As this is about managing a start-up and that's what we still are then I would strongly advocate the route we have taken (obviously I would say that!) as your first clients and the way you treat them, learn from them and develop your product with them form the bedrock of your business.  

Mike


(told you he was businessy).

Excitement levels:  Music, festivals and debt recovery
Office music this month:  The Great Escape playlist


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