

11 Things Startups Should Know About Enterprise 2.0 - mattjung
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/11_things_to_know_about_enterprise_20.php

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bradgessler
I thought the last point about "Know how to deal with secrecy, structure and
control needs" was good. This is a point that is often missed with web
startups who are trying to build social and web tools for enterprises.

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mattjung
I find the "Blue Ocean"-strategy for Start-Ups quite dangerous - because this
means convincing customers that they have a problem that only you are able to
solve. And that could easily result in building something far from a market.

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jrsims
I don't think Blue Ocean strategy is foremost about convincing people that
only you have the right solution, but rather that you are an 'alternative'
solution. You might not be the "best" solution for everyone, but you can
certainly focus on being the best solution for a smaller subset of unmet
needs.

As I understand it, Blue Ocean is primarily about differentiating yourself in
the marketplace in such a way that you get to own your own space. Lock-in may
be a consequence of it, but I think that's still missing the point.

Take Apple or Nintendo, for instance. Dell or HP competing with Apple is like
XBox or Playstation competing with Nintendo. Nintendo has defined its own
space, which it basically owns almost completely. Neither Sony or MS are
likely to be very successful at cracking the Nintendo market because of the
unique mindshare and approach to gaming that Nintendo has. Most of the time,
Sony and MS will be busier competing for the same customers in _that_ space
_over there_.

Apple has done something similar. Competition with Apple tends to be indirect,
more often than not. How does Apple continue to grow despite the lousy
economic outlook for other computer manufacturers? How was it able to insulate
itself?

"Apple" is essentially its own marketplace with its own ecosystem.

Another corollary might be the idea of "opinionated software". If you have an
opinion on how something could be done better, well then you may have just
identified your target market - your own "Blue Ocean" - and these are going to
be the people who have the same unmet needs as you and wish for the same
things you do.

"Man, I sure like [insert product or service here], but what would _really_
make it sweet is..."

That's when you know you're onto something.

In any market, you can find gaps and cracks where products and services don't
overlap, and possibly never will for a variety of reasons. Those gaps
represent opportunities. Most of these may not turn out to be billion-dollar
opportunities, but they are probably profitable enough to satisfy most of our
ambitions.

No?

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edw519
"Find a customer" now means "Find a customer within a customer".

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gasull
Could you explain it further?

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edw519
Sure.

This is the exact same strategy that got the PC into the enterprise. At first,
IT departments wanted nothing to do with them and considered them "toys". If
you needed anything, they insisted you go through them (and wait).

With the invention of the IBM PC and Visicalc, accounting departments bypassed
IT and bought their own PCs using their own budgets. Fortunately, the cost was
low enough to be under the radar. Several years later, IT had no choice but to
accomdate PCs and real user needs into their plans.

History is repeating with web apps. There's nothing to stop you from finding a
user or entire department that needs an app and isn't getting what they need
from their own IT department.

Just sell directly to the end user. They have plenty of desire and budget to
bypass IT once again.

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bestes
This is exactly how PDAs got into the Enterprise. RIM took a direct approach
with BlackBerry, but they are the exception. It's happening again with iPhone.

Consumers buy these things and bring them into work. Then, IT tries to get
them under control once they fail to prevent them from getting adopted. These
products are all useful to regular people as well, so this variant
(Consumer->Enterprise, vs Individual Department->Enterprise) is only
interesting if you're building something that is interesting to both Consumers
and Enterprise (or Consumer->Individual Department->Enterprise).

