
Outsourcing Core Business - tomh-
http://swombat.com/2011/4/5/outsourcing-core-business
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rokhayakebe
But what is your core business?

Most startups claim to be technology companies. I think 90% of these are tech-
based companies as opposed to technology businesses. The difference being the
latter kind is more like Intel or VMware. If you are tech-enabled, then what
is your core business? Is it the software you write?

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ladon86
For most tech-enabled subscription businesses, the core business is support.
Your technology is easily duplicable, so your key differentiator has to be how
you deal with customers, and how quickly.

Sales is core too, but sales is also a support task - you talk the customer
through how you can help them and what they'll need to do in order to use your
product. Educating someone into a sale is pleasant for both sides.

Doing support is time consuming, so make sure you factor that into your
prices. Can you really afford to support your product for $9/month? Probably
not, your time is worth more. Charge more than $9!

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rokhayakebe
Is it then safe to say you can outsource software development and focus on
customer acquisition and support?

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ladon86
No, only that once you have your core features in place, building more won't
improve your product and won't win or keep customers. Meanwhile, as a non-tech
business, your competitors can easily copy the features you built, so how do
you win? In the long-term you have to beat them on sales and support, and
outsourcing that to someone without a deep knowledge of the product (as in the
article) makes that hard.

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kruegerb
The best entrepreneurs, from what I have seen, are the people that want to and
must be involved in all core business responsibilities. The passion and
persistence required to create something demands this.

However, I believe there are exceptions to this, such as design. If you have
great product vision, technical ability, understand your users and you are
infinitely passionate about the product you are building, I see no problem
with outsourcing (at least initially) to 99designs or similar sites.

