While playing the software game was lucrative, this blog helps software companies sidelined by innovation to re-enter the game and to win.
Once upon a time it was lucrative to play the software industry game. We sold functionality at excellent margins. Annual maintenance was steady money for (rather) little work. Technology advanced at a manageable pace. The peer community dispensed recognition. Growth was steady and life was good.
But then the software game changed. In many niches FOSS has turned functionality into a commodity. SaaS upsets perpetual licensing, while annual maintenance is increasingly suspect. The community scattered as global players bought and consolidated. Innovation quickened. New business slowed.
Watch out if a prospect asks you to prove your story’s true. Instead, seek out an audience inclined to believe your story.
I developed applications for CICS on IBM mainframes in the 1980s. At that time IBM had a project to reimplement CICS using formal methods. Reading about the Verification Grand Challenge reminded me of that project.
An ambitious 15-year international research project, its goal is to create a large repository of useful code, verified to the highest standards of rigour and accuracy. An early case study applied automated verification tools to prove CICS is formally correct. For this they used the CICS Z notation specifications from the 1980s.
The Clang compiler recovers from unknown tokens using a spell-checker. Something small can be remarkable and worth spreading.
Being remarkable doesn’t always mean you have to develop something large. Sometimes remarkable is small, as this Clang example seen today on Hacker News demonstrates very nicely.
Clang is an open-source compiler front-end for C, C++ and Objective C. The project builds on the LLVM compiler back-end with the goal of replacing the GCC tool chain. Their worldview accepts that programmers can and do make mistakes. Amazing feats of Clang Error Recovery shows how they’ve woven this worldview into the compiler.
What caught my eye was how Clang recovers from unknown tokens. Instead of unhelpful error messages (like GCC), the Clang team chose to do something remarkable: they added a spell-checker to guess what you mean:
Identify returning users as VIPs: those most likely to spread your story. Treating everyone the same is easy, but they deserve better.
Existing users are more likely to recommend you than new one, so don’t treat everyone the same. Existing and new users have different expectations, even though they share a common worldview.
A chainsaw cannot change itself depending on whether a newbie or an experienced lumberjack picks it up. Your software is not a physical product. It’s easy to support multiple expectations from a single code base, just as you do with i18n and L10n.
The German tax system is complex (it’s said 80% of the world’s tax laws are in German). As a result, a large vertical niche of tax return software exists.
Forcing our code generation worldview on prospects just lead to heated arguments and late nights cranking out emergency fixes.
For many years I built, sold and supported application generators that generated platform-specific code from abstract problem statements. We generated Java, C++, C, SQL, HTML, COBOL, PL/I and many other languages.
Our worldview: generated code is efficient and works. Our ideal prospects shared our worldview. While they were often experts, they had no expectations about how the generated code should look. Just that it worked and that they were more productive.
Not all prospects shared this worldview. If someone said “I would not have written the (generated) code like that” we knew there would be trouble.
Physical products are tactile, but software is intangible, so how do you think your audience expects it should look, feel or even smell?
Your target audience has a story about how they expect your product will make them feel. Marketers and developers must work together and meet this expectation with consistent and genuine stories woven into your software.
Physical products are tactile; you can feel them in your hands, how they move, smell and taste. Software is intangible. Even so, how do you think your audience expects your software to feel? To look? To smell? How should it look on opening the box (installing)?
Software is easier to change than physical products. Good design splits function and presentation; weaving your story into your software will be easy. Or not.
Future employers won’t need you, but they might want you. Your product is now your skills and the stories to go with them.
Many B2B developers are anonymous workers in a software factory, with little or no connection to customers. Perhaps they get a customer visit here, or a user conference there; but typically not much more.
As products become software and the stories to go with them, previously backstage developers have a new role. Your target audience cares who produces your software, where they are and how they do it. These all contribute to the stories customers tell themselves about how they expect your product to make them feel.
Audiences want to go backstage, meet developers and see how they work. But watch out: if you don’t live your story you’ll get caught.
Packaging and labelling carry much of the load for physical goods storytelling. You have it easier: your marketers and software developers can work together and weave your stories right into your software.
Who those developers are, where and how they work is part of your story. Your audience wants to peek backstage, just like developers love to watch insider videos of Google’s fancy offices.
Going backstage used to be expensive. Developers visited customers on-site, or prospects visited the labs. Both were one-offs and not reusable.
Epic stories don’t grow on trees; you must design, build and ship them. Success depends on shipping these spreadable software stories.
Software that meets a need (horizontal or vertical) is a commodity. There’s always a cheaper or quicker supplier out there somewhere. Being just a little cheaper, or just a little quicker, cannot work for you long-term.
Focus on your target audience’s wants, not needs. While companies have needs and wants, talking about wants means talking about people and their emotions.
We decide on what we want based on how we think we’ll feel. And not just B2C; B2B buyers are also telling themselves stories about how your product will make them feel.
