Siasto Attempts the Improbable: Making Enterprise Software Beautiful (YC W11)(pandodaily.com)
pandodaily.com
Siasto Attempts the Improbable: Making Enterprise Software Beautiful (YC W11)
http://pandodaily.com/2012/06/05/siasto-attempts-the-improbable-making-enterprise-software-beautiful/
6 comments
As someone who currently makes a product geared towards improving the user experience of enterprise software, I think much of what you say is true. Some things I've learned from my own experience:
Rather than try to get people to change anything (like have them use a different product altogether) I built my product to integrate deeply with Salesforce.com (a product with a large install base). I tried to focus on specific shortcomings of Salesforce and fix those because a huge investment has already been sunk in their current system and the whole thing is not going to change.
Rather than focus first on design (which certainly factors in--it's a new user interface for Salesforce) I focused on improving the speed of specific tasks and emphasize time savings and increased user adoption.
It is a lot easier to get something sold and closed at a company with 50-100 users than it is 500-1000.
I have gotten feedback that I should have made things even more like Excel or ACT (ugh), because it's what people are used to. IE, many people don't want a new interface, they want an old one.
It has been near impossible to sell a "one size fits all" solution for this, so I have gone the route of customizing heavily in exchange for much higher prices--a hybrid product/consulting approach. Simple sounds like a good idea, but every company has different processes and methods, and they want those integrated. (Probably why Salesforce itself had to focus on customization and a developer eco-system so much over the last 5 years).
Even with all this, what I thought would be a "slam dunk" has proven to be really really hard to sell. However, I have massively improved my sales conversions by ditching the self serve approach and embracing the hybrid product/consulting model.
Rather than try to get people to change anything (like have them use a different product altogether) I built my product to integrate deeply with Salesforce.com (a product with a large install base). I tried to focus on specific shortcomings of Salesforce and fix those because a huge investment has already been sunk in their current system and the whole thing is not going to change.
Rather than focus first on design (which certainly factors in--it's a new user interface for Salesforce) I focused on improving the speed of specific tasks and emphasize time savings and increased user adoption.
It is a lot easier to get something sold and closed at a company with 50-100 users than it is 500-1000.
I have gotten feedback that I should have made things even more like Excel or ACT (ugh), because it's what people are used to. IE, many people don't want a new interface, they want an old one.
It has been near impossible to sell a "one size fits all" solution for this, so I have gone the route of customizing heavily in exchange for much higher prices--a hybrid product/consulting approach. Simple sounds like a good idea, but every company has different processes and methods, and they want those integrated. (Probably why Salesforce itself had to focus on customization and a developer eco-system so much over the last 5 years).
Even with all this, what I thought would be a "slam dunk" has proven to be really really hard to sell. However, I have massively improved my sales conversions by ditching the self serve approach and embracing the hybrid product/consulting model.
Completely agree with you!
Its a frustrating market for sure, but there is lots of money to be made, with the right strategies, and very little money with the wrong strategies.
I was doing a similar thing to you for a year or so, by piggybacking off Atlassian JIRA, as opposed to building my own products. This definitely made selling the solution much, much, much, easier!
Its a frustrating market for sure, but there is lots of money to be made, with the right strategies, and very little money with the wrong strategies.
I was doing a similar thing to you for a year or so, by piggybacking off Atlassian JIRA, as opposed to building my own products. This definitely made selling the solution much, much, much, easier!
> I suggest you guys have a long and hard think about who your customer really is in enterprise (its not the end user, its middle management)
Which is also why their strategy might work.
Management have iphones and they have seen good design and can tell that their intranet web portal from 1999 looks shitty.
But the bigger trick, is not actually the design or the feature set. The trick is to know how to sell to enterprise. So hire Oracle salesmen who know how to play golf and loose just enough.
Sadly, if you know how to sell golfware, it doesn't matter much what golfware does.
Which is also why their strategy might work.
Management have iphones and they have seen good design and can tell that their intranet web portal from 1999 looks shitty.
But the bigger trick, is not actually the design or the feature set. The trick is to know how to sell to enterprise. So hire Oracle salesmen who know how to play golf and loose just enough.
Sadly, if you know how to sell golfware, it doesn't matter much what golfware does.
I agree with you on the selling point, but the product still matters from a functionality point of view, just not from a design or quality point of view.
If the business requirements are not met, everything else is a mute point.
A manager is still going to be focussed on meeting business requirements (not pretty interfaces), this is their job after all, and it is their head on the line if things go bad and there is a big hit to productivity in the workplace for whatever reason, design is the last thing for them to worry about in the big scheme of things, and to survive in middle management in a typical enterprise organisation, you HAVE to think like this. The higher up the food chain this is escalated, the less people will give a crap about design, and the less of a chance you have at inking a contract.
It simply does not meet very many business requirements at all in the enterprise, and is a complete unknown entity compared to say the likes of IBM or HP (who both provide enterprise project management portals (or did).
Its a brutal market, the only way I see their strategy working is by targeting smaller businesses primarily and servicing enterprises on the side (like Yammer have intelligently done, which seems to be working well for them)
If the business requirements are not met, everything else is a mute point.
A manager is still going to be focussed on meeting business requirements (not pretty interfaces), this is their job after all, and it is their head on the line if things go bad and there is a big hit to productivity in the workplace for whatever reason, design is the last thing for them to worry about in the big scheme of things, and to survive in middle management in a typical enterprise organisation, you HAVE to think like this. The higher up the food chain this is escalated, the less people will give a crap about design, and the less of a chance you have at inking a contract.
It simply does not meet very many business requirements at all in the enterprise, and is a complete unknown entity compared to say the likes of IBM or HP (who both provide enterprise project management portals (or did).
Its a brutal market, the only way I see their strategy working is by targeting smaller businesses primarily and servicing enterprises on the side (like Yammer have intelligently done, which seems to be working well for them)
Yes, a thousand times yes.
- a guy in charge of enterprise apps.
- a guy in charge of enterprise apps.
I'd hardly call that enterprise software.
When you can make any of the following somewhat more painless, and marginally prettier, you'll make $$$:
- SAP
- PeopleSoft
- Pretty much any ERP or financial application
When you can make any of the following somewhat more painless, and marginally prettier, you'll make $$$:
- SAP
- PeopleSoft
- Pretty much any ERP or financial application
[deleted]
>I'd hardly call that enterprise software.
Agreed.
>When you can make any of the following somewhat more painless, and marginally prettier, you'll make $$$
Painless to who? The person who uses enterprise software isn't the person who is buying it.
If I can give any startup (without a large sales team) any advice, it's stay far away from enterprise software. The only who might be able to pull it off is Workday or SalesForce.
Agreed.
>When you can make any of the following somewhat more painless, and marginally prettier, you'll make $$$
Painless to who? The person who uses enterprise software isn't the person who is buying it.
If I can give any startup (without a large sales team) any advice, it's stay far away from enterprise software. The only who might be able to pull it off is Workday or SalesForce.
While I'd definitely not call this enterprise, I am impressed by how elegantly all of the features they do have are implemented. Yes, it's a simple product, but I actually quite like that (so many project management systems are bloated with excess features for edge cases). I'm particularly pleased with how easy it was to grab everything from Google Calendar and Google Docs.
Most of all I was blown away by the new user experience. I'm making all of my co-founders go through it simply so they see what a great new user experience is like, and understand why I obsess over such things (as well as to see if they might like using this over say, Asana).
Most of all I was blown away by the new user experience. I'm making all of my co-founders go through it simply so they see what a great new user experience is like, and understand why I obsess over such things (as well as to see if they might like using this over say, Asana).
I really wish someone would start to make enterprise software well documented.
Most of the stuff I have to deal with has a truckload of marketing bullcrap and very little sane technical documentation with a total lack of community. Also most of the stuff is very unflexible, outdated and slower than a snail.
I can go on all day, there is no end to the weirdness of "enterprise" software. It's really bad.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but costmetic issues in the enterprise are exactly that: cosmetic. You may think people care about them, but believe me, they don't.
Enterprise people need solutions to their problems and answers to their questions, no matter how pretty.
Just one (out of thousands) of everyday examples:
I already know from existing reporting that 984 orders (18% of our backlog) are already past due. For those 984 orders:
Give them something pretty that doesn't answer those questions and you're just wasting your time.
Enterprise people need solutions to their problems and answers to their questions, no matter how pretty.
Just one (out of thousands) of everyday examples:
I already know from existing reporting that 984 orders (18% of our backlog) are already past due. For those 984 orders:
- How many are for one item and how many are for multiples?
- Do we own what we owe those customers?
- If we do own it, is it in the proper warehouse?
- If it is in the proper warehouse, can we find it?
- If we can find it, is it undamaged and certified?
- If it's shippable, do we have enough labor to ship it?
- If it isn't certified, how soon can QA certify it?
- If it isn't in the right warehouse, can we move it?
- If we don't own any, where can we get some?
- Which vendors have it on the shelf?
- Which vendors do we have blanket purchase orders with?
- Which vendors do we have contracts with?
- Which orders can be split to satisfy a partial?
- Which orders are for customers already on credit hold?
- Which customers are threatening not to renew with us?
- Which orders must be shipped to hit our quarterly numbers?
Give them something pretty that doesn't answer those questions and you're just wasting your time.
Is this a more well designed replacement for Yammer? Hard to tell what the use case is from the article.
It's more like a better designed basecamp, a place to manage projects. Email us at [email protected] if you have questions.
...And to confirm my thoughts, the linked post basically says in the first paragraph that design is the reason for many problems behind enterprise software....
I think a lot of potential enterprise customers who have to deal with the problems associated with poor enterprise solutions daily would never give you guys a second look after saying something so....unrealistic?
The reality is that most enterprise software I've ever had to work with has had far bigger issues than UX and design, and due to office politics among many other roadblocks, software with these known issues can remain running for years with no fixes, or half assed fixes at best, before a decision is finally made to deal with the situation, and at this point, the cycle repeats itself again.
Do you honestly think that corporations are going to break the cycle and do something different and drastic (such as changing all their workflows to suit your tool for example) just because your stuff looks prettier and easier to use?
When large companies are looking to replace architecture, there is usually a pretty big reason behind it, and many people who need to be sold on the idea for final approval, this isn't going to happen because of anything design related, it will almost certainly be feature or strategy related.
You will find very limited traction going down this path. Enterprise is all about features, workflows, politics and (sometimes but rarely) reducing costs (from a product and man-hours point of view), all I see is a simple project management tool that doesn't address any of this.
The idea of a cloud distributed project management portal arguably makes it non-enterprise automatically (security or privacy policies anyone?) as does the fact that you guys are clearly not an enterprise yourself (although there is little you can do about this, it just puts you at an automatic disadvantage for consideration amongst many large corporations).
How will you guys support a support contract for an enterprise with 1000 users? What about 5000? Hows about 20,000?
My point behind all of this is that, to break the software lifecycle in large corporations in large numbers requires large amounts of money, and many multi-faceted strategies (which require considerable head counts), amongst many other complex considerations.
I suggest you guys have a long and hard think about who your customer really is in enterprise (its not the end user, its middle management) and think about pivoting into something which would ultimately not be as disruptive to an enterprise as a new project management portal (for the 10th time in as many years, as is usually the case) or ditch enterprise altogether, it sounds like you guys have a lot to learn before you can build a product for the enterprise, and there is nothing fun about doing this, trust me!
I do really like what you guys have done so far from a product point of view, the problem is that it totally is not appropriate for enterprise and is a very very long way from being even close, I think you guys should be doing something more like what Yammer are doing with their general business strategy (not targetting enterprises, just businesses, big and small, but mostly small) to have any chance at success, and because of the industry you have chosen (project management) with the added bonus of Yammer as a competitor its going to be tough to gain any traction regardless of business strategy, but you guys should be looking to at least maximise your chances instead of shooting yourselves in the foot. Pivot.
- An ex-enterprise programmer.