Startup Spark

Ian Landsman Knows How To Build a Small Software Company

by Ben Yoskovitz on January 30th, 2007

Ian Landsman is founder, programmer, chief marketing officer, evangelist and bookkeeper for his 1-man software company, UserScape. (Actually, I’m not sure he does the bookkeeping anymore…) UserScape currently has one product — HelpSpot, which Ian describes as user centered help desk software.

I’ve admired Ian’s work for years - he’s active in the software development community and outspoken on how he believes software companies should be built to succeed.

I hope you’ll all find the interview interesting. We jump around quite a bit - from software development to marketing to entrepreneurship. For those of you developing software applications, this is going to be of particular interest.

Interview Highlights

• You should notice how much of Ian’s time is spent not coding. He’s not just creative when it comes to building HelpSpot, he’s also got his eye on how to market, promote and generate buzz.
• Ian suggests some great resources for people developing their own software products.
• Ian’s very open with what he’s trying to accomplish, his successes and his current frustrations and challenges.

And Now - The Interview!

1. Please give us some quick background on what you do. How did you get into starting your own business? What were you doing before?

For some time I’d been considering starting my own business. Before UserScape I had worked at a startup called Active Learning Technologies, which was eventually sold to Pearson Education. That gave me a taste of startup life and got me really thinking about starting my own someday. After Pearson I worked at a small college in upstate New York, where their mainframe based help desk application started me thinking in the direction of a help desk application.

2. You run what’s called a MicroISV. How do you define that? What do you see as the pros and cons of running a MicroISV?

Well a MicroISV would generally be defined as a one person startup who’s self funded and normally working from home. I think it’s important to realize that a MicroISV is really more of a current state rather than a permanent label. At some point successful MicroISV’s will become something else as the business grows and evolves.

In general the pros of starting out in this format are many. First, being self funded means you don’t need to answer to anyone but yourself. You can take the company in any direction you see fit. The emphasis on low startup costs also make becoming profitable much easier. For instance, my product was profitable in its first month. This trait also greatly increases your likelihood of success since you can become profitable much more quickly than a traditional startup.

On the downside, it’s all on you. You’re not going to start out with a team of people to help design, develop and support the product. You need to do all that on your own. Personally I find it very rewarding, but it’s not for everyone.

3. Do you think there are any differences between MicroISV owners and other entrepreneurs?

For the most part no, but I do think MicroISV owners are sometimes more willing to think smaller. What I mean is that I’m happy making a solid living. I don’t have to be famous, I don’t need to someday have a staff of 50 to feel like the business was a success. Not that all entrepreneurs feel this way, but when I have the opportunity to interact with other entrepreneurs I find they’re often very focused on venture funding, building out the business, having midtown office space and so on. Most MicroISVs are very happy if they can replace their day jobs, make more money than they were before, and improved their quality of life.

4. What are some of the best resources out there for people who want to start MicroISVs, or are already running one?

I’d definitely recommend Bob Walsh’s book, Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality. There’s a ton of useful information in there along with many interviews of MicroISVs (myself included.)

Other great resources include the Business of Software Forum, OISV Forums and Planet MicroISV.

5. What are your top 5 pieces of advice to people who want to start MicroISVs?

I wrote an article on this some time back. A short summary of that article is:

1. Pick a large, but fragmented market. You want a big market with lots of money out there, but without one dominant player. You don’t want to go up against Microsoft, Google or Yahoo. The upside of this is that there are lots of little niches for you to fit into. It also gives you an advantage because there’s no gold standard. Potential customers who are evaluating your product don’t have a gold standard product to compare it against and that’s in your favor, especially in the beginning.
2. If possible go B2B instead of B2C. B2B generally will let you charge higher prices and allow you to focus on fewer but more valuable customers.
3. Keep your pricing really simple. You should be able to explain it in a single sentence.
4. If possible make your first product something you can use yourself. Eat your own dog food. With the limited time a MicroISV has, if you’re in your product all day it allows you to keep in close touch with it without dedicating time specifically for that purpose.
5. Blog blog blog. I started my blog right when I first started coding, 8 months before release. Doing so built up a large community of like-minded individuals who helped me spread the word about HelpSpot. It also helped me gain a very good search engine position on keywords early on which is a huge success factor with a small company that can’t afford to do large scale advertising. In my niche it was especially important because help desk related keywords are commonly $5 - $20 per CLICK for a front page listing.

6. What are the best ways to market a MicroISV or small business on a low budget? I saw your Mini-Site idea which I think is very interesting - I’d appreciate your thoughts on that, how you came up with the idea, etc.

I’d emphasize again the idea of starting a high quality blog. That’s far and away going to be the best bang for the buck, along with some great side benefits. Having a blog builds a community around yourself and your product and both can benefit you greatly if you take the time to listen.

Of course being a small business with limited funds means you also need to be creative. There might not be a lot of time for creative advertising at first, but as the business evolves some time will generally open up. Personally I have a few initiatives I’ve been working on with some success.

First is the mini-site idea you mention. I noticed that a great deal of my sales were coming off of searches for open source help desk software. I realized that in fact many people were just using that as a starting place because they didn’t know what else to look for. They actually didn’t mind purchasing software, it was just a jumping off point in their search. I also noticed that most of the results of this search were spam blogs and other worthless sites. So I saw an opportunity here where both my product and the open source community could benefit. I’m a big fan of open source, HelpSpot is built on top of open source technology. I put aside a few days and came up with www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com. It’s a site that cleanly lists the major open source help desk products. At the same time there’s an ad for HelpSpot which notes that the site is sponsored by HelpSpot and to give it some consideration. It’s really worked out well. After about 3 months it’s generated $7,000 in HelpSpot sales and sent thousands of visitors to various open source projects.

Another project I just started with a partner is www.helpdesktalk.com. This is a blog site about the help desk industry. I noticed there was a lack of information sources on the help desk community so this is an attempt to change that. Most help desk articles and information are buried within larger IT websites. Help Desk Talk is focused on putting help desk content in the spotlight. It’s too early to know what will happen with it, but there’s been positive feedback so far.

7. What was your biggest surprise in starting and running your business?

I suppose I should have been prepared for this, but the biggest surprise is how much of a life changing event it is. It truly consumes your life, especially as a MicroISV working from home. You’re working all the time and the rest of your life is structured around working. It is a very large sacrifice, but one which is very fulfilling and ultimately worthwhile.

8. What’s your biggest struggle/challenge still?

Right now it’s the idea of trying to reach the next tier of customers. HelpSpot has been very successful with companies who are “web savvy”. Now I’m trying to figure out the best ways to reach those old school companies who get all their product information from conferences and trade publications.

9. Why did you pick help desk software for your first product?

The initial spark was my previous higher education job I mentioned above. However, I didn’t move forward until I did a ton of research. Along the way I came up with my little set of rules I laid out in the previous question. Once I was convinced help desk software met the criteria and that I would have an above average chance of success I took the plunge.

10. What software markets do you see out there that are ripe for improvement?

A few areas I’d be interested in are Live Chat (I almost launched a second product in this area), Niche CRM solutions, simple non-hosted project management. That last one in particular has lots of room. Pretty much all the non-hosted project management applications out there are bad. I’ve been looking for a solution over the past month and I don’t like any of them. I have no need or reason to put my private data on somebody else’s server, I want my data on my servers and there are a lot of other IT shops and businesses who feel the same way. I think a modern web based (not hosted) project management application would do very well.

Conclusion

Thanks go out to Ian Landsman for his willingness to share his time with us. It’s greatly appreciated!

If any of you are in the market for help desk software go ahead and take a look at HelpSpot — there’s a 45-day free trial. Ian also blogs at Ian Landsman: Starting From Scratch. His openness and honesty are refreshing.

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POSTED IN: Entrepreneur Interviews