This is a summary of Gail Goodman’s Business of Software 2012 presentation.

The Silver Bullet?

The inexperienced assume there is a silver bullet to success.

• Free
• Viral
• Network effect

Have you ever heard someone say that his marketing plan consists of going viral right after launching? It shows a lack of experience. 1 out of 100 will find the magical, silver bullet like viral spread. The rest of us are going to have to work.

Gail claims that she’s pitched more VCs than anyone in the room. There is no silver bullet, but instead it is a long, slow ramp of death. It takes a long time to get to scale. It takes a long time to get to minimum critical mass. Growth is fueled by doing a million things right. Don’t count on a silver bullet to get you to the hockey stick of revenue growth.

Mirages:

• Partners: Don’t worry about partnering until you’ve figured out yourself how to sell your product.
• Product changes: Thinking “One of these product changes is going to make the difference.”

There are no silver bullets. So how did Gail get to where she is now?

The Long, Slow SaaS Ramp of Death

Constant Contact’s sales were $1.5M/month in 2006. They are now at $20M/month, and they expect $250M in revenue this year – $39 at a time. However, it took Constant Contact $21M and 13,000 customers to get to profitability. How did Gail and her team get over the long, slow ramp of death?

The funnel:

1. How will prospects learn about you? How will you reach them?
2. How does prospect and customer engagement lead to customer value and conversion?
3. How will you drive retention and referrals?

How will you reach your prospects?

Content is the biggest challenge for small businesses.

You need both online and offline methods to reach your potential customers. Constant Contact used radio and TV commercials. Slowly test these methods – test, scale, tune. They learned that small businesses didn’t understand email marketing, so they created webinars and seminars to educate them.

Word of mouth continues to be their most important channel. If customers like the product, they tell people.

How does prospect engagement lead to customer value and conversion?

We are in a mixing bowl of technology and people. We live in a world where our attention span is miniscule.

Not only do you have to get them to buy, but you have to get them to stay. Be quick to wow them. Be quick to get your customers measurable results. Make them successful early. The default text in your product should inspire action, not just label stuff.

How will you drive retention and referrals?

Innovate everywhere.  Innovation needs to occur everywhere in your business, not just in the product or technical side of your business. Innovation should be guided by customer feedback.

You don’t own the gas peddle on word of mouth marketing. The best gas pedal on word of mouth referrals is a great customer experience. The more you direct your customers to the early path of success, the better you’ll be.

Metrics

Measure your business from customer view (inward), not from metrics (outward).

Gail says the best blog post she’s ever read on SaaS metrics is SaaS Metrics – A Guide to Measuring and Improving What Matters.

LTV = (ARPU * retention) * gross margin / (-) cost of acquisition

where

• LTV = lifetime value
• ARPU = average monthly revenue per customer

Gail recommends MixPanel or Kissmetrics for measuring business metrics.

[I’d like to thank Bill Horvath, founder of DoX Systems, for sharing his notes with me.]

Here are some links to some of the blog posts from attendees at this year’s Business of Software Conference. Drop a link into the comments below if you want to add yours.

First up, the BoS blogging demoness:

Zuly Gonzalez from Light Point Security who is summarising each talk in a series of guest blogs. 

Paul Kenny, Resistance is futile!

The job of a sales coach is to listen to lots and lots and lots of pitches. After listening to sales calls for a while you develop a sense for how it’s going. Therefore, you should start listening to your interactions with your customers. Create a sales culture in your business that allows you to repeat your successes.

Bob Dorf, How Silicon Valley innovates

Most startups fail to scale. More startups fail from a lack of passionate customers than anything else. Code is only half the job. You can pretty much build anything these days. Technology isn’t the problem, figuring out who your customers will be and finding passionate customers is the hard part. If you are a passionate founder, putting in 20,000 hours gives you about a 1 in 8 chance of success.

Dan Pink, The surprising truth about motivating others.

Dan Pink started his presentation by crediting Neil Davidson for the idea behind his new book, To Sell Is Human. Dan told us about an email he received from Neil and the followup conversations where Neil described how his sales force was gaming the compensation system. Neil tried to modify the compensation system, but every time he did his sales team would figure out a new way to game it. So Neil eliminated commissions for his sales force altogether, and it ended up working phenomenally. Dan suggests that if/then rewards are extremely effective for simple, repetitive tasks, but fall short for conceptual, creative tasks.

Gail Goodman – The Long, Slow SaaS Ramp of Death

The inexperienced assume there is a silver bullet to success.

• Free
• Viral
• Network effect

All nonsense. Have you ever heard someone say that his marketing plan consists of going viral right after launching? It shows a lack of experience. 1 out of 100 will find the magical, silver bullet like viral spread. The rest of us are going to have to work. Gail has run a successful SaaS business, Constant Contact, (market cap now c $1billion, employees c 1,00), for 13 years. She did SaaS before it was called SaaS.

Peldi, Balsamiq. Coding is the easy part.

Peldi’s epiphanies as he grew Balsamiq and moved through the various stages of the company:

• Vision: At first all you have is an idea. You think it’s a great idea, but you don’t want to tell anyone because you think people will steal it. This is despite the fact that no one recommends stealth mode, and that it’s well known that an idea by itself isn’t worth much.
• Product: Then you think all you have to do is build a product, and the masses will somehow manage to find you.
• Marketing: Then you realize “Oh crap, now I have to market this.” Marketing is just as important as the idea and the product. Lean startup helps at this stage.
• Support: If you do the above three right you end up with customers, which leads to doing customer support all the time. You realize customer support is just as important as the previous steps. Then you hire people to do customer support.
• Company: Now you realize you have a company. When you only have 2 – 3 people it’s just a hobby. This company is fragile and it’s going to take a lot of your time. If you hire the wrong person you could ruin the company.
• Ecosystem: Once you have a company you can build an ecosystem of partners around that company. That ecosystem gives you a competitive advantage.

There are many books and blogs that go into great depth about the first four topics, but there isn’t a whole lot of information about the last two. Peldi’s talk focused on the last two – company and ecosystem.

Andrei Pop – Andrei Pop summarised why Business of Software is all about the people in his blog, ‘Find your tribe”

“I really struggled to write this blog post summarizing my learning from Business of Software. I spent three caffeine fueled days in Boston last week with some of the most intelligent, thought-provoking people I have ever come across. The conversations and learning were almost impossible to summarize in a blog post. I tried, several times actually; I have about 6 or 7 unfinished posts sitting on my hard drive. I could have produced any number of bullet point lists summarizing my learning – “5 things I learned at Business of Software”. But that wasn’t the point, and it wasn’t the post I wanted to write. Had I written it, you would have read it and nodded along, as you’ve done with countless other startup advice posts that tout generic advice any entrepreneur should probably heed – “of course I should listen to my customers”. You would quickly move on to another post and 10 minutes later you would have forgotten what i said. You see, this is the fate of 99% of the blog posts, books and conversations. The other 1% is people. That is what I found at Business of Software, and that’s what I want to write about.” Read more…

Matthew Dean – Matthew scored big by writing summaries of every presentation for Onstartups. Very comprehensive and well written writeups.

“Within the past week, my son turned four, my daughter turned one, and I attended the hands down best conference I have ever attended. It has been a great week and thus, I was inspired to share my experience at the conference, Business of Software, or BoS for short. The conference website is businessofsoftware.org and the hash tag was #BoS2012.” [Thanks Matthew!]

“The remainder of this post will summarize my thoughts in each of the presentations at this year’s conference. Unfortunately if you weren’t in attendance, these summaries simply won’t do the presentations justice as there were so many stories and anecdotes to go along with them that provided much context and value as well. Thus, I would highly recommend that you follow the BoS conference blog as videos will eventually make their way onto the site.” [They will when they have been edited, processed and checked. This usually takes about a month.] Read more…

Alex Czartoryski, the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Fresh Air Educators wrote about key actionable takeaways. This post is also being run as a guest blog on Business of Software.

“Here are some actionable insights and take-aways that I felt were most significant at this year’sBusiness of Software conference (2012, Boston)

“Make your Customers Awesome (aka Badass)

“To encourage your customers to spread your product via word-of-mouth, your product should make your customers “badass”.  Don’t focus on making your product awesome, focus instead on making your customers awesome.  This may seem like a small semantic difference, but what triggers the word-of-mouth snowball is when your customer can impress his/her friends because of something you did.” Read more…

Justin James – Business of Software 2012 highlights, letdowns, and a controversy. One paragraph summaries of all talks.

“Business of Software features presentations and workshops from some of the most successful people in the world of software startups, including Kathy Sierra, Gail Goodman, and Bob Dorf.

“One of my biggest dreams in this industry has been to attend the Business of Software conference. Business of Software is an annual event aimed at software entrepreneurs and people involved in startup software companies. It is a multi-day event that brings together presentations and workshops from some of the most successful and experienced people in the world of software startups.

“Last week I was able to go to Boston and attend Business of Software 2012. In the coming weeks I will write about some of the most useful things I learned there, but today I will talk about each speaker’s presentation to give you a feel for the event. (Recordings or transcripts of the presentations will post to the event’s website in the next month or so.) Read more…

Jody Burgess, Tribbon. BoS2012, Personal lessons learned.

I am just now recovering from the whirlwind of Business of Software 2012. It was the most exciting, exhausting and rewarding event so far.

This is the fourth year for me as an attendee but the first year as a founder/entrepreneur. Words cannot express the difference in mindset. Instead of having conversations in my head like “Wow, I wish so-n-so was here to hear THAT” and “How am I ever going to convey that awesome point to others back home?”, I was able to actually focus on how I would use the ideas right away. Like… in real life. Starting tomorrow. Amazing!

You hear what you want to hear. Listening to stories of those who have walked the path before me has always been an inspiration. This year was no different. However, I also heard cautionary bits of wisdom that I didn’t quite pick up on in years past. Maybe because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. Instead of hearing “you can do it” and “you got what it takes”, I heard things like “be careful of this” and “watch out for that”. Holy cow! What a difference a little perspective makes. Read more…

Larry Gregory, Competegy. Partner Strategy and the Business of Software.

I recently attended the Business of Software conference in Boston.  Attendees ranged from developers to CEOs, mostly representing small but fast-growing software companies.  I have condensed the more compelling talks down to their key points and correlate how they relate to ISV Partner Strategy as follows: Read more…

Drop a link to your write up/blog post if you have one in the comments and we will link to them.

Beautiful and useful. Double win. Great illustration from Marine Barbaroux, Chief Awesome Officer (I made that up but she is), at Red Gate Software.

We want more Marine… 🙂

Guest blog post from Alex Czartoryski, the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Fresh Air Educators who attended last week’s Business of Software Conference that we ran in Boston and got one of the first write ups in…

To encourage your customers to spread your product via word-of-mouth, your product should make your customers “badass”.  Don’t focus on making your product awesome, focus instead on making your customers awesome.  This may seem like a small semantic difference, but what triggers the word-of-mouth snowball is when your customer can impress his/her friends because of something you did.

This is one of the powers of Instagram — it allows average people with no photography skills to start taking awesome pictures that can impress friends and family.  Spend some time thinking about what your customers are doing AFTER using your product, because that’s when the word-of-mouth happens.

Gamification

Although “gamification” is hot right now, it is generally NOT the type of behaviour you want to encourage.  It is a behaviour that triggers similar brain functions to those experienced during slot machine use and is not something that promotes long-term loyalty in your customers.  Gamification works only in very narrow verticals and in general will not produce sustainable or desired results.

A/B Testing

When running an A/B Test, ALWAYS start with a theory and then use the A/B test to try and prove or disprove that theory.  Don’t just run random A/B tests that show and hide various elements, hoping to stumble upon a magical winning combination.

To find out if your test results are statistically significant, don’t trust your A/B Tool.  Instead use this formula: Don’t trust your A/B testing tool to determine if your test is statistically significant.

Instead use the following THREE STEP formula:

1. Define N as the total # conversions in A + B
2. Define D as the difference in # conversions between A and B divided in half
3. The test result is statistically significant if D squared is bigger than N.
4. Act on it: Badasscode13

[Update 26th September. This is it but sadly someone else got there first – we have to make these harder… Your search isn’t completely in vain though. If you’re quick – first three people to use this get $1,000 off.]

Thanks to Jason Cohen at WP Engine for this formula

The Idea Factory:
Nurture Entrepreneurship in your Organization

This is a framework (un-polished and in need of improvement) to nurture entrepreneurship in an organization (mainly geared towards developers, but not necessarily):

Company Culture

As an owner, if you don’t “design” your company culture, your employees will do it for you.  You shouldn’t let  your employees do this, because they usually suck at it.To design your own company culture:

1. Decide what you care about
2. Hire people that care about the same thing
3. Remember the things you care about.

In terms of scaling company culture during rapid growth, “transparency” is a big help.  A by product of transparency is that it is very difficult to do stupid things because everyone will call you out on it.

Profit Sharing

Here is the profit sharing strategy that is implemented at Balsamiq.com

Customer service should be like a “par 3″ golf course:

If there are more interactions than this, then you are not spending enough time either understanding the problem or finding the perfect solution for the problem.

How our jobs are killing us

Sitting down for more than 3 hrs a day decreases your lifespan by AT LEAST 2 years on average. Try to stand up and move around for a few minutes at least once every hour, or consider getting a standing desk.

Salesmen and the Art of Selling

Turns out that contrary to popular belief, the best sales people are NOT extroverts.  They are NOT introverts either.  They are “ambiverts” — which is the majority of us: those that are not on either extreme of the scale.

Interesting Sales Pitches

The Question Pitch: If you ask your customer a question, and you know what answer they will come up with in their head (and it’s a favorable answer), then this is much more compelling than just telling them in the first place. (Should landing page headlines be questions to our customers?)

The Rhyming Pitch: Rhyming messages trigger a cognitive part of the brain that makes them more memorable and seem MORE TRUE.  ”If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit”

The Pixar Pitch: All pixar stories are fundamentally structured like this:

Once upon a time __________________
every day ________________
until _______________
because of that ____________ and because of that _______________
until ___________________

(Think of Saving Nemo or any other Pixar movie).  Apparently a sales pitch like this is very effective.  Should you consider a story like this on your About Us pages?  Or perhaps below the fold on your landing pages?

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of HERMIONE IS BADASS.

The Outputs

Name of team: HERMIONE IS BADASS.

HERMIONE IS BADASS didn’t disclose names or superpowers. They went straight to the rest of the challenges.

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, HERMIONE IS BADASS built a spaghetti tower 104 inches tall. (Though it was clearly stuck to the window by marshmallows…)

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

HERMIONE IS BADASS members talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video.

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, HERMIONE IS BADASS claimed 24 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

Where is Hermione?

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 98 inches wide gap. Here is the photo.

They drew a cartoon to encapsulate the Business of Software Conference. Have a look.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of HERMIONE IS BADASS is

• “Become the universal messaging plumbing for the internet: from people and machines to other people and machines”.

Finally, HERMIONE IS BADASS explained how software could solve a big problem in the world.

http://youtu.be/DPqIxrF1e44

Thank you, HERMIONE IS BADASS members for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON.

The Outputs

Name of team: ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON.
Names and superpower of members:

• Peter ‘I wrangle technical debt’ Bell
• Dave ‘Brain full of marshmallow’ Collins
• Brian ‘Orange paper-cutter’ Buchanan
• Joe ‘Scalpel’ Corkery
• Jody ‘Fearless’ Burgess
• Abder ‘The Listener’ Guezour
• Mike ‘The cleaner (of legacy code)’ Clement
• Lukas ‘Empathy’ Fittl
• Jeff ‘Confuser’ Kwuchte
• Rob ‘Car trunk packer’ James
• Hamid ‘Air guitar’ Shojaee
• Ronit ‘The cleaner (when the shit hits the fan)’ Kelapure
• Justin ‘Spaghetti towers’ James
• Randy ‘I see the future’ Staats
• Paolo ‘I bounce like a rubber ball’ Ottana
• Ricardo ‘Write at the speed of thought’ Parreira
• Michael ‘Stubborn’ Chapman
• Ryan ‘Indestructible underpants’ Wheeler
• Neil ‘Invisible, but only when ordering at the bar’ Davidson
• Jim ‘I can fly’ Hidlay
• Michael ‘Sublimawesomeinal’ Krakowskiy
• Gregory ‘I curse other people’s software’ Menvielle

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON built a spaghetti tower 40 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots  with us.

ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to find out why Mark is tied down.

http://youtu.be/FBf2OE-bAXU

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring the ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON claimed 24 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 54cm (21.26 inches) wide gap.
Possibly inspired by the spaghetti tower project, the ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON captured the essence of Business of Software Conference with artistic photography.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter by ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON is

• “Twitter will continue 2 b the conduit of useless ramblings for the worlds under heard & we will make money by promoting & selling that data”.

Finally, they explained in a 1 minute video  how software helps us overcome ‘corruption’.

http://youtu.be/9M08gh89ZFQ

Thank you, ORIGINAL ORANGE BALLOON members for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

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This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the MISFIT TOYS.

The Outputs

Name of team: the MISFIT TOYS.
MISFIT TOYS didn’t disclose names or superpowers. They went straight to the rest of the challenges.
Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the MISFIT TOYS built a spaghetti tower  42’’ tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

MISFIT TOYS talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, the MISFIT TOYS claimed 16 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here. Hermione?

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 25 inches  wide gap. Here is the photo.

They took a picture to encapsulate the Business of Software Conference. Does it ring any bells?

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of MISFIT TOYS is

• “Building a solid business model for Twitter: Make it up on volume”.

Finally, MISFIT TOYS pinpointed ‘World Hunger’ as a big problem in the world. In a 1 minute video they explain how software could solve it.

Thank you, MISFIT TOYS for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?!

The Outputs

Name of team: the the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?!
The CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! didn’t disclose names or superpowers. They went straight to the rest of the challenges.
Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! built a spaghetti tower  63 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find them.
The CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

http://youtu.be/RGv46-jaiUg
After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! claimed 22 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

http://youtu.be/NEU761J6wTA
They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 116 inches  wide gap.

Their creative interpretation of Business of Software Conference seems to be again the ‘paper ring of awesomeness’.  Have another  look.

http://youtu.be/NEU761J6wTA

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! is  to

• “Charge for premium analytics on influence, attention & filtered content. Create app platform. Allow everyone to monetize their tweets.”.

Finally, the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software could solve problems for confused consumers..

http://youtu.be/A-oM8SMh3IU

Thank you, the CAN HAVZ WEB CONNECTION?! for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the MARSHMALLOW MISFITS.

The Outputs

Name of team: the MARSHMALLOW MISFITS.
MARSHMALLOW MISFITS didn’t disclose names or superpowers. They went straight to the rest of the challenges.
Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, MARSHMALLOW MISFITS built a spaghetti tower 43 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

MARSHMALLOW MISFITS talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

http://youtu.be/MoFXhxsy7qc

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, MARSHMALLOW MISFITS claimed 14 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 64 inches wide gap. Here is the photo.

They took a picture that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Have a look.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of MARSHMALLOW MISFITS is

• “140 too restrictive? Great news! You can now tweet to your heart’s desire. Sign up for Twitter Unlimited. Costs only a penny per character”.

Finally MARSHMALLOW MISFITS explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software could solve problems of transportation.

Thank you, MARSHMALLOW MISFITS for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the BADASS TEAM.

The Outputs

Name of team: BADASS TEAM.
Names and superpower of members:

• Josh Matt Rogish – flight
• Ruben Gamez – speed
• Warwick Eade – digging
• Shawn Gaines – speed reading
• Jesse Manning – spider man
• Jon Devine – sight
• Joseph Mastey – invisible
• Bob LaLoggia – spotting bad code
• Adam Wishneusky – walking through walls
• Marine Barbaroux – touching super hot things and not getting burnt
• Tyler Rooney – frugality
• Brian Nottingham – pinball
• Chuck Kuddry – levitation
• Justin Goenes – empathy
• Steve Josh Walsh – reading minds
• Jeremy Henry – seeing the future
• Bradley  Bo Williams – knowing his badass number
• Waheeda Iudekula – speed
• Clint Wilson – influences
• Corey Reid – talking
• Stephen – composition
• Patrick – freezing things

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the BADASS TEAM built a spaghetti tower54 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

The BADASS TEAM talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring the BADASS TEAM claimed 24 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 46 inches wide gap. Here are some photos.

They created a cartoon that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Who is this chap?

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the BADASS TEAM is

• “200 characters, fonts, colors, audio, video, and pictures for a monthly fee. MegaTweet allows tweets to take flight. Big time.”.

Finally, BADASS explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software could help us become ‘revolutionary’.

http://youtu.be/pXphVYN_Gqk

Thank you, BADASS TEAM members for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the REPLACEMENT REFS.

The Outputs

Name of team: REPLACEMENT REFS.
Names and superpower of members:

• Master Manipulator – Invisibly control…something
• Vertical Man – Climbs any mountain
• The Rock – No obstacle can take him down
• Mr Supernova – Creates new worlds
• Inspiration Man – Power to persuade with a single word
• Mr. Big Picture – Flies overhead to see everything at once
• Evasive Man – Ability to teleport beyond this dimension
• Mr Fantastic – X-Ray vision to see solutions to problems
• The Masked Multitasker – Accomplishes much while remaining stealthy
• The Prognosticator – Sees the future…from the past
• The Chameleon – Able to adapt to any situation
• The Great Scot! – Invincible in battle
• The Atomic Sponge – Absorbs everything around him
• Eagle Eye – Laser vision and superhuman focus
• The Phantom – Its almost like he’s not here
• Bride of the Phantom – Is she here? Nobody knows!

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, REPLACEMENT REFS built a spaghetti tower 63 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

REPLACEMENT REFS talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

http://youtu.be/kLtf3yqAegU

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, REPLACEMENT REFS claimed 4 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 19 inches wide gap.

They created an image that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Have a look.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the REPLACEMENT REFS is

•  “Success is selling puppies. Puppies attract & interact w people, trivialize $$$ & are so loved people look past occasional poop as they grow”.

Finally, REPLACEMENT REFS explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software tackles problem solving.

http://youtu.be/UbAhbgp9PVg

Thank you, REPLACEMENT REFS for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the BADASSES MAKING BADASSES.

The Outputs

Name of team: BADASSES MAKING BADASSES.
BADASSES MAKING BADASSES didn’t disclose names or superpowers. They went straight to the rest of the challenges.
Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, BADASSES MAKING BADASSES built a spaghetti tower 3’9” free-standing and 8’ 5’’ tall when supported.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

BADASSES MAKING BADASSES talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

http://youtu.be/y-dH6m7UB8k

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, BADASSES MAKING BADASSES claimed 31 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 35.5 inches wide gap.

They created a picture that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of BADASSES MAKING BADASSES is to

• “No more ads. Tweets are the global currency. Follower count is your new bank balance. All your profits belong to us”.

Finally, BADASSES MAKING BADASSES explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software could solve scientific problems.

Thank you, BADASSES MAKING BADASSES for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the WALLABIES.

The Outputs

Name of team: WALLABIES.
Names and superpower of members:

• Josh Frankel – Super Sarcasm
• Alex Czartoryski – Turns paper into string
• Brett Grego – Marshmallow construction
• Mark Checn – Pivot Tables at the speed of light
• Joseph Mastey – Scale walls with no gear
• Phillippe Asselin – Turning Frowns Upside Down
• Michael Christofoiles – Solving Problems
• Mike Petsalis – Pivot on a dime
• Ariane Holzhauer – Finding Problems
• Jeff Szczepanski – Guessing People’s Age
• Kris Goldhair – Selling features we don’t have
• Josh Sullivan – Tweets about twitter
• Simon Huntley – Feeding the world
• Matthew Dean – Excel Master
• Steve Hanov – Changing diapers without waking up
• Matthew Wensig – Bootstrapping with children
• Bradley Batt – Making the complex simple
• Adam Russell – Creating Problems
• Patrick Foley – Persistence and Shooting Rubber Bands
• Brian Leach – Cat herding
• Philip Prescott – Levitation

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, WALLABIES built a spaghetti tower 54 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

THE WALLABIES talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

http://youtu.be/sJJ49wY6Z4U

We counted 23 people that passed a paper ring over their head to the floor without it breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 54 inches wide gap. Here is the photo.

They took a picture that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the WALLABIES is to “Grow free user base, introduce paid prods: live and scheduled tweets for biz special events & promos cs specific platform & analytics sales”.
Finally, the WALLABIES explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software could solve the ‘communication’ problem in the world.

http://youtu.be/zbii5a-CXX4

Thank you, WALLABIES for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the team DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES.

The Outputs

Name of team: DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES.
Names and superpower of members:

• Don”The Reflector” Murray
• Jonathon “Goo Master” Cogley
•  Chris “Marshmallow Tower” Lucas
•  Sherry “The Talker” Hess
•  Brice “Silent Treatment” Wilson
•  Kelsey “Selective Hearing” Warren
• Brian “The Eye” Turchin
•  Kevin “The Confuser” Bennett
• Neasa “Transparent” Foley
• Neil “The Thinker” Berman
• Jeff “Speed-Up” Campbell
• Herb “Slow-Down” Caudill
• Matthew “Kill ‘Em with Midwestern Kindness” Gonnering
• John-Daniel “The Offender” Trask
•  Geoffrey “The Burper” Rabault
• Phil “The Stalker” Sherwood
• Joel “The Teletransporter” Worrall

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES built a spaghetti tower 42 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

The DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, the DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES claimed 19 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 48 inches wide gap.

They created an image that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Have a look.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES is

• “To create a worldwide emotionally-connected, badass community enabling every voice to be heard #BoS2012”.

Finally, the DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES pinpointed ‘Children’s Education’ as a big problem in the world. In a 1 minute video they explained how software could solve it.

Thank you, DECRAPIFIED HAMSTER BADASSES for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the team AVENGERS.

 The Outputs

Name of team: AVENGERS.
The AVENGERS didn’t disclose names or superpowers. They went straight to the rest of the challenges.
Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the AVENGERS built a spaghetti tower 47 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

The AVENGERS talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. They called it ‘Culture Hacks’.

http://youtu.be/p4ycPZiaiBA

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, the AVENGERS claimed 44 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 92 inches wide gap. Here is the photo.

They drew a picture that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. You can find it here.

In less than 140 characters, the AVENGERS’ proposed business strategy for Twitter is to

• “Make people and businesses more badass by delivering relevant, immediate information adapting to their changing worlds”.

Finally, the AVENGERS pinpointed ‘Health Care’ as a big problem in the world. In a 1 minute video they explained how software could solve it.

http://youtu.be/JUFd-2PhSrI

Thank you, AVENGERS for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the WINNING TEAM.

The Outputs

Name of team: WINNING TEAM
Names and superpower of members:

• Peldi the penguin profilerator – Pingu perforation
• Taylor the telephone Tangler – talktime truncating
• Adii the augmented gnificAlienator – alien abduction
• Mike the maent mongoose – mammal manipulation
• Domick the devourer of doom – dongle dangling
• Ron the ravacious reveler – ridiculous riddles
• Tyler the tortoise terminator – toenail tensioning
• Ismail the igloo isolator – ice increasor
• Shana the seductive stinger – stuff stacking
• Kathy the kinky karter – kart kicking
• Nicole the nefarious noodle – noodler nibbling
• Trisha the trampoline trickster – trombone tickling
• Beau the biggerator – boulder banging
• Dan the derranged damage – disk defragging
• James the Jiggler – jam jiggling
• Betsy the bonkers baffler – bingo beautification
• Robert the rodent rider – risky rodeoing
• Levi the long legged – Leg lengthening
• Jay the joyous – jaunty jingles

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the WINNING TEAM built a spaghetti tower 4′ 11’’ tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us BUT CLICK ON THE SCREEN TO GO TO THE INTERACTIVE VERSION.

THE WINNING TEAM talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, THE WINNING TEAM claimed 31 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 52 inches wide gap.

They sketched a cartoon that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Have a look.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the THE WINNING TEAM is:

•  “Idea +make users look awesome + create community + $$=#winning #bizstrategy”.

Finally, THE WINNING TEAM explained to us in a 1 minute video  how software could solve (or not) problems in the world.

http://youtu.be/GIeR4Lo4f04

Thank you, WINNING TEAM members for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the team SUPERTRAMP!

The Outputs

Name of team: SUPERTRAMP!
Names of members and superpower each team member possesses were not disclosed.
Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, the members of SUPERTRAMP! built a spaghetti tower 73 inches tall plus balloons!

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They tweeted some screen shots  for us.

Members of SUPERTRAMP! talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it.

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, SUPERTRAMP! claimed 36 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 68 inches wide gap.

They made a collage that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of SUPERTRAMP! is

• “Resigning from #Twitter 1.0 today…recruiting for 2.0. Are you ready to change the world…again? #InnovateOrDie”.

Finally, members of SUPERTRAMP! spilled the beans about the ‘sock problem’. In a 1 minute video they explained how software could tackle it.

sockExchange from Luke Simshauser.

Thank you, SUPERTRAMP! for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of TEAM ICARO.

The Outputs

Name of team: TEAM ICARO. Names and superpower of members:

• Leigh – Love to take on tough challenges
• Brian – Aquaman powers
• Garrett – Seaching powers
• Brock – Falls asleep anywhere
• Jones – Finding existing solutions to problems. dont reinvent the wheel
• Dnaiel Ramos – I’ma finder – if you lost it, I can find it
• Eric – Marketer by day. Racecard driver by night
• Tob Digre – Explain complex tasks to the average person
• Bill – Alliance negotations & development
• Cesar – Solve world problems by dancing
• Eddie – Ability to fly
• Jennifer – Etch-a-sketch master
• Andrei – Making stuff
• Eric P. – worlds best debugger
• Geoffrey Jeff – Golfer
• Alex F – Surver Badass

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, TEAM ICARO built a spaghetti tower 43 1/8 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us.

TEAM ICARO talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more.

http://youtu.be/dN1srODRBzE

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, TEAM ICARO claimed 26 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves.

http://youtu.be/Dp7LE54Hp38

They built a spaghetti bridge to span a 68 inches wide gap.

They took a photo that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Have a look.

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of the TEAM ICARO is to

• “Produce and License Valid Real Time News Content Big 3 Networks >> CNN >> Tweet News”. Finally, TEAM ICARO pinpointed ‘Education’ as a big issue in the world.

In a 1 minute video they explained how software could solve it.

http://youtu.be/Wwcmb_14wqU

Thank you, TEAM ICARO members for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This year’s workshop sessions were designed to help get people talking and thinking together in smaller groups. We hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy themselves and meet some interesting people. Each team had a maximum of 20 people from different companies and they all worked together to produce a series of specific outputs to 10 challenges. Overall available time was 90 minutes and the results were submitted online. Here are the outputs of the team LUDDITES.

The Outputs

Name of team: LUDDITES
Names and superpower of members:

• The Pedestrian — Travels using the immense power of his strong legs
• Affable Girl — Has friends in real life
• The Remote Controller — Can manually push buttons on electronic devices
• The Cleaner — Can tidy without a robotic aid
• LowFi Man — Sees everything in low definition
• The Cat — Destroys birds
• The Brain — Stores information IN HIS BRAIN
• The T-Totaller — Resists Alcohol
• The Surface — +6 defence to iPad
• Unreachable Man — +4 defence to smart phones
• Always Buffered Man — Is… always buffered
• NaviMan — Has premonitions about minor traffic congestion
• Unity Man — Brings people together (via a closed platform)
• The Cartographer — Navigates using mighty eyes and ears
• The Librarian — Can read real books
• Captain Verbosity — Uses many words
• The Fireplace — Heats foodstuffs using FIRE
• The Undivided Atom — Resistant to nuclear power
• Thumb Girl — Can manually turn pages
• The Non-Sharing — Can avoid the crap out of Facebook

Using a single packet of spaghetti and marshmallows, LUDDITES built a spaghetti tower 37 inches tall.

To better their BoS experience, they wireframed a special Mobile App. They shared some screen shots with us. Unfortunately, we could not find the file.

LUDDITES talked about something important they learned in BoS 2012 in a 1 minute video. Watch it to learn more about ‘Money or Happiness’. (Because this was uploaded onto a screencast website, we couldn’t embed the video but I bet you a pack of Sugru it will make you laugh unless you have no sense of humour).

After cutting a piece of letter paper into a ring, LUDDITES claimed 20 people passed it over their head to the floor without ring breaking. You can see for yourselves here.

They built a spaghetti bridge to span the gap between two BoS conference tables without declaring the exact width.

They drew a cartoon that encapsulates the Business of Software Conference. Don’t they look remarkably familiar?!

In less than 140 characters, the proposed business strategy for Twitter of LUDDITES is to

• “Go to BOS 2012??? Profit!”.

Finally, LUDDITES explored the ‘Secret of Happiness’ in the world. In a 1 minute video they explained how software could increase happiness.

Thank you, LUDDITES for participating and being up to the challenge of BoS 2012 Workshop!

This is a summary of Paul Kenny‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation.

Sales Habits That Matter

The job of a sales coach is to listen to lots and lots and lots of pitches. After listening to sales calls for a while you develop a sense for how it’s going. Therefore, you should start listening to your interactions with your customers.

Create a sales culture in your business that allows you to repeat your successes.

Habits that matter (from Paul’s previous presentations):

• Understand value: What a salesperson is good at is creating value by identifying what customers really value and then verbalizing it.
• Dialog: Salespeople are great at creating dialog. Being good at it allows you to understand value. What great salespeople do is build a dialog around everything that’s going on to uncover real problems that they might be able to solve.
• Share Stories: Storytelling is about making the way you articulate your sales resonate with the customer. Don’t ask selfish questions. Selfish questions are those that steer the conversation in a direction that allows you to talk about the topics you want to discuss. For example asking “How important is a dashboard for you?”, and following up with “Well the great thing about ABC is how interactive the dashboard is.”
• Closing: The purpose of a business is to create customers.

Resistance is Futile

Resistance happens for all sorts of reasons. Resistance feels like hitting a brick wall. You have to think about it because it will define what type of business you are.

What is your sales super power? Use sales Jedi mind tricks to manage resistance.

There is no such thing as the perfect product, even in your imagination. Even if you build a fabulous product some people will say no. Nobody gets 100% market share. So you have to know how to respond when your customers say no.

The path of least resistance – salespeople go for the easiest deals. Most resistance is mundane and manageable.

• Too busy (no time)
• Not convinced
• Prefer another product
• No money
• My boss says no
• Not sure it fits our current system
• Found it difficult to use

The people who are awesome marketers are really bad at dealing with no. When a client says no, you say OK, but ask questions. You’ll end up with a meandering path that may lead to a yes, or at least to a better understanding of why the no. When we decide to be a little pushy we can learn a lot. You’d be surprised at how many opportunities are lost.

The reason we resist new and different products is because when making buying decisions we use our lizard brain first.

Image credit: @JimYoungPG

• It’s easier to say no than yes.
• People want to test your faith and stamina. People want to test you not because they think your software is suspect, but because they are unsure of your organization.
• Helps to resolve nagging doubt.

There’s more to learn from a qualified no than an unqualified yes. All the people that say no are the ones you will learn the most from.

Sometimes clients have delayed reactions. If you put enough cracks in their doubts you will end up with an easy sales in the future.

A sales conversation with no resistance rarely ends in a deal being done. If it’s too easy, it usually means they’re not going to pay.

Resistance is the beginning of disengagement. You must push back on customers, but you shouldn’t do it in a pushy way. If you win the argument, you lose the sale.

• Ego is involved in every decision.
• Battle lines may be drawn.

Three forms of resistance:

• Objections
• Price shock
• Delay: “I want to think about it.” You MUST challenge them to see what it is they are thinking about.

Two types of objections:

• Logical: “It won’t work for us.”
• Emotional: “I don’t like it.”

Two traditional responses to resistance:

• Attack: “You don’t get it.” This is predicated on the belief that the client is an idiot.
• Surrender: “Fair enough.” We are not a pushy company.

The top sales people have one effective response – they treat resistance as a huge game. They’re explorers. They treat it as a natural and necessary part of the sales process. They believe that no real deal will be done if there is no friction.

What makes a brilliant objection handler? Basics – client awareness, market and product knowledge, etc. More important is speed of thought, persistence, reframing, attitude of thinking on your feet and looking for the best way to articulate the benefit. For example, “Wow! That’s really interesting. What is it that makes you feel that way?”

General principals of handling objections:

• Understand and isolate the underlying objection (without asking “why”)
• Get on the customer’s side (empathize)
• Respond and reframe
• Confirm and close

Don’t ask “why.” Instead probe deeper by understanding what is the underlying problem. For example, ask “What are your objections?” instead of “Why don’t you like my product?”

Every price objection is about relative value. When confronted with price objections:

• Politely ignore – “Let’s look at what you’re getting and then decide if it’s worth your money.”
• Ask “In comparison to what?”
• Break the price down

If a client responds with “I want to think about it.”, the sale almost always goes down after the client has thought about it.

• This is hard, because if you go back, you’re being pushy.
• Do they really mean it? Or is that the end?
• Get them to articulate what they’re thinking about, even if you can’t sell it. Then you can follow up with ideas/research/whatever that will deal with it.

Within your organization:

• Discuss what your response is to resistance.
• Discuss how far it’s OK to challenge the client.
• Discuss how you’ll build into your sales culture a positive handling of resistance.
• Discuss what you’ll do differently next time.

[I’d like to thank Bill Horvath, founder of DoX Systems, for sharing his notes with me.]