It is no news to anybody that software development, done right and positioned correctly in the market, delivers tremendous business value. If you know how to sell software solutions, you can make hundreds and thousands of time fold what you invested in a solution.
Let's take for example an international real estate company. When you acquire and import 1.5 million listings and get a subscription base of 6,500 realtors working on them, you as the owner of that solution can easily make in the double digit million$ from subscriptions fees, specialty products and service and other in-app products and services (such as training courses, coaching programs etc.)
Nonetheless there is a general perception in the market that software development is an expensive endeavor. Business owners, senior executives and mid level managers continue to look at things with a very short term perspective instead of seeing the long term ROI.
Did you know that in the mid '90s both Altavista and AOL turned down Google's technology at a little over $1 mil.? How much is worth Google now? It's probably a good thing that AOL did not buy them: they probably would have not known what to do with their technology.
So what can we do as business/product owners, from the small floral shop in the corner of the street to the big Fortune 100 company who is getting into the mobile apps arena?
1. Educate yourself
Technology is an ever changing field. Educate yourself by attending seminars/webinars, work shops, conferences, read well known books, online articles and documentation. The more knowledgeable you will be with technology, the greater chances you will have to know how to leverage it.
This goes further to say that, if you are a small business owner in particular, you should take formal education / classes in certain areas of technology: most of the small business owners are not sophisticated at all when it comes to technology and that costs them a lot of money.
2. Trust and respect your developers
Develop trust relationships with your developers. Have steady teams working on projects and give them your trust and credit. Your developers know what they do, they work hard and push themselves to deliver and it is only into your benefit.
Developers are also generally a different kind of breed. Because they are very smart and creative they set high standards to themselves. They do not like to be disrespected, looked over their shoulders, finger pointed etc. They do not work for doughnuts either- even though a lot of companies still provide doughnuts based treats and bonuses :) Miss treating or undermining a software developer is a big expensive mistake.
Trust and respect your developers: they deserve it and you owe it to yourself.
3. Create win-win situations
That's an important aspect. You are definitely in business to win. You are in business to make money and make your customers happy. You have to stay profitable and grow.
And so is your developer. Your developer is interested in a win situation as well. He/she wants a long term profitable and full filling relationship. He/she wants to see you backing up with your business expertise, with your money, with your connections, with everything you can bring to the table.
Too many companies these days only create win-loose situations. Learn how to create a win-win one.
4. Consult with your developers
Great developers have big egos. They want to be seen as business partners as opposed to "tools". They want to be heard. They want to be respected. Do that. Never under estimate the involvement and passion of a good developer- many time he/she puts his/her heart in what he/she creates.
Moreover a lot of developers have a lot of expertise and business acumen. They worked for big companies on big products and complex solutions. They know the technology and how it can be leveraged. They more likely know quite a bit about the market and the product themselves.
When a client of mine asked me in 2012 if he should buy some Facebook stock, I was very familiar with the company and the market at that stage. While I am not a financial advisor, I understand quite a bit social media and the technology around it (I understand for example why a company's stock cannot go up without a strong monetization model- which Facebook did not have at the time). I advised him to wait for 6 month for their mobile ads to go full blast and then to buy. It was a great piece of advise as the stock initially pulled down and only after that it started to climb up.
Consult with your developers. They are savvy and they want to help out.
5. Sell, sell, sell
I don't think there is anything else to add here. Your developer delivered your solution. Now it's time for you to sell it. Sell day and night and don't make thin excuses of "not enough features" type- we'll give you as many features as you want. You just go ahead and sell.
Make it a great day!
Adrian Corbuleanu
Miami Beach, FL
http://wittywebnow.com
Witty Web Solutions (http://wittywebnow.com) is a Miami Beach based software development company. Our code is lean, small foot print, easy to read, reliable and fast. We have excellent tech support. We save development costs by implementing agile project management techniques.
