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Interview with New Member: Techcello

December 28, 2012 By

SIIA is delighted to welcome our newest member Asteor Software. I had a chance to sit down with Shankar Krishnamoorthy to learn more about their application development platform.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA. Tell me a little bit about Techcello and what makes your solutions unique.

Shankar: Techcello is a cloud ready, multi-tenant application development platform – used by ISVs and Enterprises to build their products and applications faster and better.  We are featured as Gartner Cool Vendor and Nasscom Emerge League of 10 company.   ISVs who are looking at building green-field SaaS products or migrating their existing on-premise products to SaaS look at using Techcello as the platform for building their SaaS products.  And, large enterprises use our Techcello platform to build their applications such as dealership management system, benefits management systems, etc. because of our strong security engine, tenant hierarchy capabilities, business rules & workflow features, developer productivity  components, etc.  Invision, Secova, Duosoft, Roferez, Sutherland Global Services are some of our prestigious customers who have used Techcello extensively for building their applications.

Approach to application development on top of .NET is unique in Techcello.  We have productized the complex portions of building software (architecture, plumbing, data security, etc.) into Techcello and let the developers focus on building their business specific functionalities rather than bogged down by engineering complexities.  They consume the API/Webservices provided by Techcello for these complex functionalities.  While developers will stay with their usual development style and approach for building the software, it will be governed by Techcello so that complexities are taken care by Techcello and also the developers are lot more productive.  This saves anywhere between 90 to 150 people months of effort in application development on a typical large project.   So, time to market is faster.  Apart from saving cost and effort, the fact that our customers use .NET technology, which gives them the complete control and flexibility in their technical approach/decisions. We believe this provides a very unique advantage for Techcello.

Rhianna: This past year you conducted a survey on SaaS/Cloud Multi-Tenancy. Can you tell us a little about your findings?

Shankar: We asked ISVs “Where are you on the road to Cloud, SaaS and Multi-tenancy”.  We mapped Cloud adoption (Current and Planned), SaaS adoption (Current and Planned), Multi-tenancy adoption (Current and Planned), Development Approaches and Platforms. The responses show that there is a positive trend across the industry towards Cloud, SaaS and Multi-tenancy in that order.  Most companies understand the challenges, skills and investments required to build Configurable, Multi-tenant applications for a scalable Private or Public Cloud.  They recognize that shifting to SaaS requires different kind of approaches both towards software development and operationalization.  And, they prefer to stick with 3GL platforms such as.NET and J2EE for such development.   This is more towards getting freedom, flexibility and talent.  The results can be viewed here : http://blog.techcello.com/2012/04/cloud-saas-multi-tenancy-techcello-survey-2012/

Rhianna: What are some of the biggest challenges that companies face when engineering a Multi-tenant SaaS application?

Major challenge is the need of understanding multi-tenancy holistically.  Each tenant data has to be secured at all levels – whether it is user data, business rules, workflow, extension fields, etc.  Application architecture has to be built on top of data security considerations.  This also leads to several non-functional requirements.  People often underestimate the effort here. Overheads can be as high as 30%.  For example, Multi-tenant SaaS implies a single code base for 1000s of customers.  That brings in a lot of other implied needs such as the ability to customize the data models, views, rules and workflows at the end user / tenant level.  The set-up as well as enforcement of “Who sees / does what” in the system, should also be dynamically managed during run time as it may vary depending on the region / vertical / customer. Many products are designed for global use and hence we need a layered hierarchy of tenants and users.  Add to these, the obvious challenges of performance and scalability on the Cloud.   Building all these capabilities is not rocket science.  But the expertise and experience required is not easy to find; plus, it consumes good amount of time.  Developers often prefer to focus on the business functionalities and rightfully so.  But it is too risky to leave these critical engineering aspects to be closely coupled with business features.  Even for customers who want to build the whole stack ground up, we always recommend that they create a separate framework team internally to build and maintain the engineering stack.

We have written an ebook on Simplifying multi-tenant application development and it is available for you to download from our website, www.techcello.com.  We have covered all aspects of engineering a multi-tenant application development and it has received rave reviews from some of the readers/customers.

Rhianna: I saw a white paper you published on Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs). How do you define the NFRs and why is it critical to do so?

Shankar: Non-functional requirements are something which you may not define explicitly in your product specifications, but, expect that the product should have these.  Performance, Security, Scalability, Configurability, etc. will generally come under NFR as these are not generally spelt out explicitly.  If the NFRs of a custom .NET solution built for a specific customer consumes 10-15% of overall effort, the NFRs of multi-tenant SaaS products could take as high as 30%.  If the product does not meet NFRs expected by a customer, it can lead to several issues (eg. Unsatisfactory performance of the software, unsatisfied customers, revenue loss, etc.).  Thinking about them in the form of a productized framework (whether it is built in house or bought from outside), is critical for the long term TCO and maintainability.   Many people have gone to the market with Multi-tenant products thinking that it is nothing more than adding tenant ID to the database tables. And they often have to re-engineer / re-build as they go along or compromise on their competitive advantage. CEOs and CTOs should take an active role in evaluating the NFR Check list.  Based on the positive feedback we got for our white paper, we have now built an excel sheet that helps CEOs and CTOs think and choose what NFRs are needed now and in the future and calculate the effort and money that needs to be invested on them.  Please write to info@techcello.com to get more details on this ROI calculator.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Software Tagged With: , ,

Calling all Young and Innovative Tech Companies

December 14, 2012 By

Entrepreneur, Technology, and Innovation – is this the trifecta of what it takes to make it in today’s economy and ever changing landscape of the as-a-service space?

The SIIA is excited to launch our NextGen program for its 8th year. This program showcases the competitive nature of what truly makes a company the next generation of young companies to watch. We are calling all companies that are transforming the software and services industry. By being selected as one of the NextGen companies, you will receive:

  • SIIA issued press release announcing the 2013 NextGen Companies distributed and supported by the SIIA public relations firm.
  • NextGen Companies will have the opportunity to be coached on their product pitch by our NextGen Selection Committee.
  • Full conference registration to AATC 2013.
  • CEO is invited to participate on the NextGen panel at AATC 2013, May 7-9, in San Francisco. Panel will be moderated by a partner at a leading advisory firm.
  • CEO is invited to the VIP dinner at AATC 2013.
  • Company will be featured in the NextGen Pavilion at AATC 2013.
  • Company and contact information will be featured on the SIIA and AATC 2013 websites.
  • Company and contact information will be distributed to all AATC attendees in the attendee bags.
  • SIIA 2013 NextGen Companies will be recognized in front of your peers at the 2013 CODiE Awards Luncheon on May 9, 2013 in San Francisco.
  • Each company will be featured separately in a SIIA blog post in 2013

Apply today to gain industry exposure, secure funding, form strategic partnerships, gain new customers, or form your exit strategy.

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Filed Under: All About the Cloud, Cloud Computing, Software Tagged With: , , , ,

Interview with New Member: LiquidPlanner

December 12, 2012 By

SIIA is delighted to welcome new member LiquidPlanner. I had a chance to speak with their CEO, Liz Pearce, to learn more about the company and the project management market.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me a little about LiquidPlanner and what makes you unique in the Project Management market.

Liz: LiquidPlanner is unique because it is the only project management software to offer a bold new approach to scheduling. We call it “priority-based scheduling,” and it’s not only easier, but also far more accurate than traditional project management solutions based on the Gantt chart. Our robust scheduling engine actually automates much of the manual work that traditionally falls to project managers. In fact, our customers report their teams save an average of 16 hours a month from the automation benefits provided by LiquidPlanner.

Here’s how it works. In LiquidPlanner, you give tasks “best case / worst case” estimates and put them in priority order. Then LiquidPlanner automatically calculates for you an expected completion date for each task and for the project as a whole, based on who the work is assigned to and how much availability they have. Unlike other project management solutions, LiquidPlanner does not allow you to overbook a team member, so the results are based on real world availability of resources. Because projects and tasks are prioritized in rank order, you can instantly see when a change to one project impacts another – something that is impossible with most other tools.

LiquidPlanner also offers time tracking, collaboration, analytics, mobile apps, and more, all delivered through the cloud. We launched the company in 2008 and have over 1,200 customers in 50+ countries worldwide, many of whom are software, IT, and creative organizations.

Rhianna: How do you think the Project Management space has evolved in the last 3-5 years and what trends are driving that evolution?

Liz: The general proliferation of SaaS-based business tools has been transformative for the project management industry. Shared, collaborative systems are now the norm, in contrast to the time just a few years ago when the project manager alone held the keys to the castle. It’s resulting in a new “democratization of project data,” where information on workload, estimation accuracy, and tracking is now available to all members of the team. That means team members can get a barometric read on their own performance relative to others, not to mention better insight into their own contributions, areas for improvement, and roadmap of responsibility. Now, the onus is on vendors to provide solutions that are easier to use, so each team member themselves can update the project workspace without the need for a specialized project manager in the IT department. The trend of SaaS-based project management also means executives are getting unprecedented visibility into capacity and their ability to deliver products and services. I think you’ll see more and more businesses reporting internal cost savings from smarter project management tools.

Rhianna: You do a lot to ensure security and support with your solution. Can you tell us a little about the measure you take to ensure overall security and support of your solutions?

Liz: One of the great things about the SaaS model is that software providers live and die by the quality of service they offer. Naturally, we go to great lengths to ensure end-to-end security and reliability, from authenticating every user account via email to using SSL technology for server authentication and data encryption. We manage our own servers at a world-class data center here in Seattle. In addition to tight physical security measures, it’s architected to protect against hardware and software failure with redundant power and internet connections, hot failover servers, nightly off-site data backups, and 24/7/365 monitoring.

Rhianna: You recently took over the CEO position, having previously held the COO role at LiquidPlanner. What is your vision for the future of the company?

Liz: It’s an incredibly exciting time at LiquidPlanner. We’re really entering the second era of LiquidPlanner’s life as a company. The first five years were dedicated to R&D – we set out to tackle a really big, hard problem and disrupt an old and stagnant market. During this period, we essentially bootstrapped the company to profitability and established a loyal customer base around the world. Today, LiquidPlanner has more than 1,100 paying customers in 50 countries across multiple industries and the company was named one of “Washington’s Best WorkPlaces” by the Puget Sound Business Journal. The next phase for LiquidPlanner is all about driving the company’s growth and extending our platform. We see so many opportunities to help teams tackle increasingly complex projects in today’s competitive business environment, and we are investing heavily in social productivity innovation to meet this growing demand. My vision is that LiquidPlanner becomes a component of the must-have business software toolkit for businesses of all sizes, alongside industry leaders like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Box. We’re lucky to be doing business in a time when innovation, quality, and service are rewarded – on those grounds we are very solid. I’m extremely bullish on the future.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Software, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Interview with New Member: Shopping Cart Elite

November 19, 2012 By

Shopping Cart Elite is one of the newest SIIA members. I had a chance to meet with their CEO, Igor Soshkin, and ask him a few questions about the company and their marketplace.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me a little about Shopping Cart Elite and what makes you unique.

Igor: We are able to provide an all in one solution that combines features from a dozen companies for a fraction of the price. Anyone who is looking for an affordable solution that combines Shopping Cart (Volusion or BigCommerce), CRM and ERP (Netsuite), Multi-Channel Marketing (Channel Advisor or GoDataFeed), Hosted Search (SLI Systems), Price Spying (PriceManager), Support Desk (Zendesk), SEO applications and Social Media applications would love Shopping Cart Elite.

You can read our full story here.

Rhianna: You had great success in the wholesale and automotive industries. Why did you decide to start with a focus on those two verticals?

Igor: When we first started in eCommerce in 2001, it was just my brother Nick Soshkin and I. Since there were no dot net open source shopping carts on the market at the time, we decided to create our own for our company.  We had $20,000 to start the business. Fast track to 2005, we hit our peak gross sales of three million dollars, and we realized that we hit a dead-end. We were paying $125 per hour for data entry and data management, which is a minimum wage job. There was no way of getting inventory levels from our drop ship suppliers; there was no technology to automate the product synchronization between multiple marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon. It was frustrating that we were paying thousands of dollars for security consulting to address server issues, and audit the software for compliance. We had to hire in-house designers to update the website at $60 per hour. When we had to address random website issues, test new releases and pay for servers, our monthly expenses exceeded $40,000 in development. These unnecessary expenses were depleting our profits.

In 2006, we officially stopped growing, and we realized that for us to continue growing we would have to hire more engineers to address minimum wage tasks. We also had to develop more tools to automate parts of our business, which meant more developers on payroll. As the economy started to slow down, we had to find a new way to address our software and technology needs. Paying half a million dollars each year for a small eCommerce business was ridiculous. We sold our eCommerce company and started to focus on figuring out a permanent solution for eCommerce businesses to utilize our knowledge.

When we sold our eCommerce company, we made it our goal to take everything we’ve built thus far and create the best shopping cart on the market. We wanted to address everything that stopped us from growing beyond three million dollars per year. I am extremely passionate and deeply involved in this technology problem. Being an eCommerce expert, I knew what the eCommerce industry needed. Our technology would allow new entrepreneurs to create a real ten million dollar company of their own.

The industry needed a platform like eBay or Amazon, but for eCommerce websites. The platform would use the same template, it would just have different graphics to make it personal. This way we could uniformly enhance the technology every month, and everyone could benefit from the enhanced features without any effects on their design. Over time, the new features would outweigh a custom design, which would only remain custom to the store owner for as long as it took someone to copy the design. Customers don’t care how pretty the website is as long as it is professional, trustworthy, and functional. They only care about the price and inventory. Don’t take my word for it. Just ask any eBay or Amazon top seller how their sales are doing on a platform with 100s of other competitors who look exactly the same, sell the same item, and show up in the same search results. Look at any Fortune 500 website such as Staples, OfficeMax, or BestBuy. They all look alike. All the Fortune 500 companies use the same expensive third party plugins such as social reviews and hosted search.

There are over 500 shopping carts on the market. None of them address the problem that Shopping Cart Elite is trying to solve. If they did, all the Fortune 500 companies would be using them instead of paying millions for custom software development and third party plugins. Shopping Cart Elite is a solid platform for serious eCommerce businesses. We will change the game and put all other failed shopping carts out of business.

Rhianna: You have a marketplace module that allows companies to push their products in various marketplaces. Tell me about this and how you also integrate SEO content.

Igor: Companies can use Shopping Cart Elite as a central data portal. Shopping Cart Elite will then take the product data and synchronize over 30 different marketplace including eBay, Amazon, Google Shopping and every other one you can find. Customers can pick and choose what to submit, and what marketplace. They can choose only to submit certain products with inventory, or the complete store. We also synchronize their inventory to these channels, and we will soon support price and order synchronization.

As for SEO, we are the only Shopping Cart in the industry to focus on native SEO application built right into Shopping Cart Elite. Since the SEO applications are natively built, our customers can benefit use their existing product data to automate their SEO campaigns. For example, a customer can create hundreds of blogs focusing on different niches within their vertical, and have our blog poster syndicate those blogs with content from their store. You can create articles and use our LSI keyword research and SEO content optimizer to exceed the best SEO practices.

Another SEO feature that we have is called Visitor Generated SEO. You have visitors coming to your website, and searching for products using different variations of rich and long tail keywords. Wouldn’t it be awesome if when they typed something, the relevant search results would be turned into an SEO indexable page for Google?  It would be even better if that webpage automatically added itself to the sitemap and ping Google to cache it immediately.

This awesome feature happens to be available on Shopping Cart Elite, and it is called Visitor Generated SEO. It does everything I just described and more. You can also get groups of keywords from Google Adwords Keyword Generator and plug them in by the thousands into your website. This will automatically create

unique content pages for all the popular keywords that Google recommends for your ranking and visitors will start pouring into your website in no time. Shopping Cart Elite is the only platform in the industry to focus on Organic SEO applications. We believe organic should be the core traffic source of any eCommerce business, and our customers agree.

For further details about our SEO, check out the information on our website here.

Rhianna: You have partnered and integrated many third party solutions to your offerings. How important are these partners and will you continue to integrate more third party solutions as appropriate?

Igor: We do partner with many companies, but we do it a little differently from other shopping carts by choosing our partners carefully. We want to deliver a great experience to our customers while making sure the customers pay an affordable price for the complete bundle.

The companies that have a partnership with us benefit from a very close relationship. We usually make sure that we natively integrate their solution in order to achieve a rich user interface and experience for our customers. We opt-in all of our current and new clients on launch day for our partners. We also make sure that all of our new clients are made well aware of our partner solutions. We partially marry our partners, and they become a part of our infrastructure.

We welcome companies to partner with us, but they need to make sure they bring real value to the table.

Rhianna: What are some of the main areas of focus for Shopping Cart Elite in the coming 12-18 months?

Igor: We finally completed our mobile strategy, and we enhanced our customer templates to automatically render the website based on the visitor’s device. The website will automatically reposition and resize elements to fit any screen including desktop, tablet or mobile.

We are also working on a new feature called Traffic Quality Analyzer which will deduct click fraud, bot traffic, visitor who engage (You can read more here about click fraud). We are very active with product development, so it is hard to predict what exactly we will be developing in 12-18 months. This year we exceeded our development roadmap by releasing over 3000 new features, and we plan to exceed that milestone again in 2013.

We are committed to making an affordable all in one ecommerce solution for companies of all sizes.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Software Tagged With: , ,

Interview with New Member, Transverse

October 24, 2012 By

SIIA recently welcomed Transverse, a SaaS billing platform provider. I had a chance to speak with their Co-Founder, President, & CEO, James Messer. James is an 18 year veteran of the telecommunications and IT industries and I asked him about Transverse’s position in the marketplace.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me a little about Transverse and what makes your billing platform unique.

James: For businesses looking to increase revenue or roll-out new business models, TRACT billing from Transverse is the only all-in-one activity-based billing platform that can meter/rate and bill based on customer behavior. Unlike basic subscription or expensive legacy billing systems, TRACT provides a simple solution to complex billing challenges and enables companies to engage with customers.

Rhianna: Tell me more about activity-based billing, what are the advantages?

James: Consumers are using monthly services to download songs, stream movies or view a digital news article, but most would prefer to only pay for what they use and that’s where subscriptions are limiting. Businesses can provide a more personalized experience for consumers while creating new revenue streams by charging on an activity basis instead.

Rhianna: You talk about this evolution of billing, how it has gone from Billing 1.0 to Billing 3.0. What do you mean when you refer to Billing 3.0?

James: Billing 3.0 means billing is a valuable tool that extends beyond finance department. By capturing revenue in an accurate, timely fashion using activity-based billing, other groups (such as the marketing department), can use the resulting analytics to identify and respond to emerging customer trends faster than competitors. With Billing 3.0, billing becomes a powerful enabler of product innovation and rapid introduction.

Rhianna: I noticed you have a number of partners, payment and technology partners. How important are these partners to the Transverse go-to-market strategy?

James: Partners are a key ingredient to helping our customers succeed. These include active payment partners, such as PayPal, Chase Paymentech, CyberSource, Authorize.net, and First Data. Additionally, we partner closely with technology companies like SugarCRM, Pervasive, OpSource, Rackspace Hosting, and OneLogin to enable seamless integration and ease of use.

 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA.

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Interview with New SIIA Member, PaySimple

July 25, 2012 By

SIIA recently welcomed PaySimple to the SIIA community. After presenting at the SIIA Strategic & Financial Investment conference last month, I had a chance to chat with their CEO, Eric Remer. Read my full interview below.

Rhianna: Welcome to SIIA! Tell me a little about PaySimple and what makes you unique.

Eric: PaySimple simplifies the way small businesses bill and collect payments and empowers them with technology to make their business more efficient. Our cloud-based accounts receivable automation solution includes support for multiple payment types, across multiple payment channels (mobile, web, recurring, and invoice) all integrated with customer management. This solution uniquely meets the needs of small businesses in the services sector. With PaySimple, 85% of customers save time and 55% get paid faster. PaySimple also offers custom-branded programs for large enterprises looking to provide value-added solutions to their small business members. Partners in market today include American Express, JP Morgan Chase, Western Union, Vantiv, Jack Henry and ADP.

Rhianna: Your sweet spot is small businesses. As those businesses scale, can PaySimple scale along with them? Are their specific requirements for retaining those customers?

Eric: We are fortunate in that many of our customers have grown significantly since they began using PaySimple. While our solution is easily approachable for the business just making the switch to automated billing, it also has a robust feature set to support the evolving needs of growing businesses. Some examples include multiple users and roles, sophisticated reporting and proven scalability.
We’ve found that once a small business uses the system, they are likely to remain a customer for life. PaySimple places a strong emphasis on helping customers get started including uploading their customers and processing their first transaction. Most of our customers will achieve an ROI in their first month of usage. In our experience, the vital keys to retaining small business customers include a product that is easy to use, that provides ongoing tangible value all backed by amazing customer support.

Rhianna: As our lives become more and more mobile, how important is mobile to your business strategy?

Eric: Mobile is a key component of our business strategy. It is vital for small business owners to be able to conduct business and access information anytime from anywhere. PaySimple launched iPhone and Android apps last year and have continued to enhance and expand these apps in 2012.
We’ve found that small business owners not only want to use mobile devices to collect payments, but that they also find the ability to manage their business from anywhere very valuable. Some of the most common actions taken with our apps beyond payment processing include checking the receivables overview dashboard and interacting with customers such as pulling up a map, or placing a phone call.

Rhianna: You have received a couple of awards recently, JMP Securities Hot 100 Companies and Red Herring Americas Top 100 Private Companies. What does that recognition mean for PaySimple?

Eric: The recent recognition and awards we’ve received have been a great honor. We view these awards as another market indicator that the receivables automation movement is going mainstream to help small businesses improve their cash flow and manage their business more efficiently. We are excited to be recognized by these organizations for our innovative approach to helping small businesses and the enterprises that serve them.
 

Rhianna Collier is VP for the Software Division at SIIA. Follow the SIIA software division on Twitter @SIIASoftware

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Filed Under: Cloud Computing, Digital Media & Software Investment Conference, Mobility, Software, Uncategorized Tagged With: , ,

Webinar – How to Sell The Way Your Customers Want to Buy

May 30, 2012 By

With the onset of social media and mobile technology, marketing and sales professionals face a non-traditional sales cycle. Sellers are no longer in charge of the customer buying process and the customer expects immediate responses and results. If you are struggling to deliver this demand, then listen to this pre-recorded webinar featuring revenue coach and author, Kristin Zhivago on How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy.

To download a copy of the slides, click here.

 

About the Presenter:

Kristin Zhivago is a revenue coach. She teaches CEOs and entrepreneurs how to increase their revenue by understanding what they want to buy and how they want to buy it. She spends her days solving marketing and selling problems for her clients, and writing and speaking about what works. She interviews customers constantly for her clients and has interviewed literally thousands of tech buyers. Zhivago founded Zhivago Management Partners, Inc. in 1979 in Silicon Valley. She operates now out of Jamestown, RI, blogs at RevenueJournal.com, and is the author of Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy.

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