September Edition

Haut Tech: SaaS Insights from Scio Consulting

What Makes Up a Service? Part1 & 2 – by Michael Dunham

Our first podcast was not as “clean” as I wanted technically, but it was strong on content. For this show, we brought together a panel of industry leaders including our CEO, Luis Aburto, Michale Blaisdell of MBlaisdell & Associates, and Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures to talk with Steve Plunkett, CTO of Servitizer. Our conversation covered much of the fact and fiction around providing services across the Internet for all types of service providers.

Thinking back on the conversation today, I believe some of the most important thoughts were that the industry today is still very immature in some critical aspects and evolving towards the kind of integrated ecosystem that will be necessary to meet the needs of the future. Along with that somewhat sobering reality – I have to add that for ISV’s transitioning to SaaS the barriers are not technical for the most part.  The real barriers are the organizational, cultural and business issues that must be dealt with to be successful. 

I wrote this two-part article as a summary of the key points we covered in the conversations. Nothing substitutes for being part of the conversation, but I know I speak for our panel and special guest when I say we feel there are critical points in this podcast we believe the industry must absorb. Whether you can download and listen to the podcast or not, I hope you will find the time to read the article and maybe – join the conversation.

Pricing Subscription Services - How? – By Michael Dunham

As the second in our series of best practice podcasts – this was a revealing discussion. Our panel included Steve Plunkett, CTO of Servitizer, Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures, and Justin Pirie – a UK-based SaaS product management and marketing specialist. Our guest was a recognized authority in the field of software and SaaS pricing, Jim Geisman of Software Pricing Partners.

Pricing is a daunting task and a critical aspect of the business strategy behind successful SaaS and cloud-based services.  Too often we focus on the technology before we give pricing a thought. Worse, few if any new services really examine the value their users perceive in their offerings.  I haven’t started to summarize this conversation yet – preferring to let people download and listen first and to get a little distance before I go back to it.   This conversation went by too fast and regardless of where you are in the SaaS continuum I think you will find it useful.

I will be writing an article on the blog this week about the issues we covered – watch the blog for it and join us.

Best of SaaS: Industry Insights We Read

The Customer Development Manifesto: The Reasons for the Revolution –

Parts 1 -5 by Steve Blank  

My move to extending my social media contacts to live conversations has truly taken me far and wide. I’ve recently had conversations with industry leaders in Australia, India, England, Ireland as well as here in the US. If anything has struck me it is the shared sense of pragmatism we all share about this industry. We all know we’re watching an industry going through a disruptive transition but we also know the usual tech hype cycle isn’t telling the important stories.

So, it is with particular emphasis I point out Steve Blank’s Blog and this important series.  If you don’t read his blog – start now. It is a refreshing voice of experience that is not afraid to be a little controversial. And when you read this series, prepare to have your ideas of product development seriously challenged. I believe the approach he outlines is a critical shift in how we view the startup process for SaaS products.

The Three Spheres of Web Strategy – Updated for 2009 – By Jeremiah Owyang

Strategy is a lot of what I follow and when it comes to marketing and community Jeremiah Owyang always has an interesting take on current issues.  In this article on his blog he summarizes how community, business and technology are the critical balancing act in web strategy. This is a subject we come back to again and again these days – marketing and product management are more intricately linked today than ever before and what links them is community and communication. Look for more from us on this important subject in the near future.