Sally in HR has a Business Problem
Steve reads his Blog
Sally's problem: the onboarding process for new hires at Acme Corp. Sally inherited the current process from her predecessor, consisting of a Master spreadsheet and a New Recruit spreadsheet. After a new applicant accepts an offer, she emails the New Recruit Spreadsheet to the new recruit. It is fairly straightforward on the surface, appearing to the recruit to be one page of questions. Bob, an Excel Guru who left the company three years ago, created it. There are quite a few hidden and locked cells, and no one is really sure what they are for, but it works. When the recruit returns...
info_outline
A Mountain of Shitty Little Apps
Steve reads his Blog
When Microsoft introduced the Power Platform as a "Citizen-Friendly" set of tools for non-technical business users to create apps to solve business challenges, it seemed a worthy endeavor. Well, enough time has passed to assess the outcome. Those who jumped in with both feet now have a mountain of shitty little apps. Those who watched from the sidelines decided, "We don't need that!" So is that the end of the tale? Let's see. The First Mistake To enable broad and rapid adoption of the Power Platform, Microsoft decided to add a "seeded" Power Apps capability to all Microsoft 365 licenses. Thus...
info_outline
Microsoft is Infected with AI as Copilots Consume all of the Oxygen
Steve reads his Blog
info_outline
Steve has a 4th chat with charles
Steve reads his Blog
info_outline
Steve has a Chat with Vahe Torossian
Steve reads his Blog
I had a chance to sneak up on , a Microsoft Corporate Vice President and the man in charge of Sales for Microsoft Business Applications. While Vahe has been with Microsoft for 30 years, many of you may not know him, so I wanted to fix that. Vahe is no ordinary Seller; he’s the “Top” guy who sets the sales strategy and motions for the entire global team. Vahe is also the guy who runs the really big enterprise customer meetings, and he’s super-friendly, as you would expect for the Chief Rainmaker. We covered a lot of ground in this one, so enjoy! Transcript Below: Vahe: Hey,...
info_outline
Steve has a Chat with Jukka
Steve reads his Blog
I had the pleasure of having a chat with a Power Platform industry leader, Jukka Niiranen. Listen or Watch below. Enjoy!
info_outline
The Works Services-as-a-Subscription Model Update
Steve reads his Blog
Back in May, I wrote a describing a completely new Services model we call "The Works from Forceworks". It is a Services-as-a-Subscription model that is unique in the industry. I also promised to follow up with our learnings from this new model, so today I will do just that. The Works First, I'll remind you of what the offer is. Thanks to advances in low-code/no-code for Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform we decided it was finally time to launch a completely new services model. An all-inclusive, unlimited service that included not just support, but also deployments and customizations, along...
info_outline
Power Platform Blind Spots
Steve reads his Blog
info_outline
Power Platform Outside the Bubble
Steve reads his Blog
In my recent conversations with Charles Lamanna and Jason Gumpert , we discussed the explosive growth of the Power Platform. Then while listening to Jukka Niiranen on yet another podcast I was reminded that we are all inside the Power Platform bubble. From the outside, however, this bubble is tiny. Expanding Bubble There is no denying that the Power Platform's growth is impressive, but who is growing it? Microsoft has a fist-full of enterprise-sized customers who went all-in and sang the praises. But of all the enterprise-sized customers worldwide, I doubt this has touched even 1%....
info_outline
The Microsoft Partner Dilemma
Steve reads his Blog
info_outlineI had planned on making this two posts, but frankly I have too much on my plate at the moment, so its a twofer. The first part is about something new I launched, and the second part is about a bold move I made.
ISV Connect ED
I have certainly been one of the "complainers" about Microsoft's ISV programs, including ISV Connect. Well, you can only complain so much, and then, if you are in a position to, you have to take action. I decided that what ISVs were missing, was a community that was ISV Focused, instead of just being in a subcategory somewhere. The ISV Ecosystem is a big business and Microsoft seems to be grasping how important we are, particularly after a recent study they commissioned on ISVs that got their eyes-popping. Toby Bowers confirmed this in my recent chat. Speaking of Toby, he is now the new leader for ISV Connect, taking over for Guggs who is retiring from Microsoft. So, new blood, new opportunities... seemed like the time was right to launch something to help everything move along.
ISV Connect ED is a membership site, so it's not free. I would love to have done it for free, but then it would not get the love it would need to succeed... and it will require a lot of love and attention. I won't go into a lot of detail here, I wrote a post on it describing what it is, and why I am doing it, here. But I will say, if you are an ISV, I want you to join and participate, otherwise you better steer clear of me when in-person events resume in the future.
My Bold Move
Okay, I don't know how bold this seems to you, but it was a pretty big deal to me. I tossed and turned for weeks before committing. As we were building the site for ISV Connect ED, I found us making heavy use of WordPress plugins. Almost every plugin we found had a free version, and then a "Pro" version. For about 90% of the ones we used, we ended up opting for the "Pro" version. This got me thinking about our RapidStartCRM Solutions on AppSource. While our apps have done quite well, I found myself wondering what things would look like if I had 100X the user base. The only way that would happen is either a massive marketing campaign, which would cost a ton, or... make the apps free. Either way the cost is significant. Not only would I be giving up the potential future recurring revenue for the apps, but I would have to stop charging all of our existing customers for them too!
How could this work!
Obviously, my plan was not to go broke, but "free" certainly does not help a bottom line. Looking at the WordPress model, most of the free plugins have basic capabilities. But if you need something more sophisticated, almost all of them offer a "Pro" version. We could certainly do that. Our core RapidStartCRM apps are intended to be simple apps, but over the years we have built some fairly sophisticated I.P. on top of them for certain use cases, like Project Management and Field Service. So we already had our "Pro" addons started. Also, most customers ended up engaging us to do further customizations, and why not, who knows our app better than us? So there's two revenue generating possibilities... would that be enough?
Controlling Costs
Imagining thousands of customers on the free app... that could bury us in support costs. Again, the WordPress Plugins developers' model came up. Most of them offered free support for their free apps in the form of a User Forum. Not only does this limit the effort, but more often than not, another user answers the questions raised. If you want more than forum help, you can buy it from the developer, or in some cases upgrade to their "Pro" version to get it. Brilliant! We will replicate that motion as well.
Farm Betting
I am taking a big risk, but I am not betting the whole farm on this. Our primary revenue source has always been Project Services, often on RapidStartCRM implementations, but about half come from other customers. So trading the potential, and existing recurring revenue from the apps, for what may come with greater scale is not crazy. Or, at least I don't think it is. Well, I hope not, since it is already underway and too late to turn back.
Unlocked
Again, following the WordPress model, where the plugins are not usually protected code. If you have the development skills, you can edit them yourself. So our RapidStartCRM apps are also all completely unlocked and able to be extended by the customer, another partner or... hopefully by our team at Forceworks. I may be opening a Pandora's box here, but I feel confident we will get our share.
Which Apps?
So we are making free four existing apps, and one more in the future pipeline:
- The Original RapidStartCRM, the simple to use Sales and Service app that started it all in 2015.
- RapidStartCRM Referral, a version for businesses that operate on a referral model.
- RapidStartCRM Homebuilder, a purpose built sales application for production homebuilders.
- How2 by RapidStartCRM, an in-app training solution that actually was always free.
In our pipeline we have a new "RapidStartCRM B2C" in development for businesses who primarily sell to and engage with consumers.
Worst Case
The worst case scenario, is not really that bad. It is possible that many organizations will use our free apps without ever opting for a "Pro" anything, or needing any help at all. I mean there could potentially be thousands of customers being introduced to Microsoft's Business Applications as a result of our free apps... I guess that's not a bad thing either. I'll be covering our progress with this approach on the blog at ISV Connect ED, so if you want to see how this ends up, well you'll have to join that!