I’m crazy about new businesses. The passion, the excitement, the discovery involved in starting something new, figuring out what works, pursuing a passion. I’m known in the office for exuberant introductions to a favorite new customer. I carry pictures in my briefcase of my favorite old customers. Starting a new business is hard as hell (I have first hand experience), but it is a special breed of person who can weather that perfect storm. And those are the people I want to spend my professional life with.
So why, you might ask, would someone this loopey for the little guys hang out with the corporate suits? Do I want to get bought? Do I want to get financed? Do I want to get customers? Do I want to get free lunch? Yes to maybe a few of these things, but the real reason is that there are some amazing things that can be done when the industry stalwarts are working with the young innovators. And I want to be the small company in on the big conversations.
And so co-upstart Sunir Shah from FreshBooks.com and I are proposing a SXSW Conference panel presentation titled “Dancing with Giants: How Start-Ups Do Deals with Industry Titans”. Our plan (and you can support it by voting for our session) is to spend our hour talking with 3 of the mega giants in our industry; Google, Intuit and American Express about how small and big businesses can work together to build small business greatness.
There can be many pitfalls in doing “game-changing” deals with large corporations; they can disrupt your product plan, delay development efforts, cost money in legal fees, then change directions, abandon your project or launch a competing product. Not to mention your 3 person development team working with a 50 person “rule by committee” scenario on the other side. Not ideal.
You might remember that we spent a little time in Austin a few weeks ago. In addition to getting to hang out with a ton of Batchbook customers and partners, Michelle sat on a panel with some of our Small Business Web friends: Freshbooks, MailChimp and Formstack. The panel was moderated by Scott McMullan of Google. He’s part of the Google Enterprise group and leads the Google Apps Partners program.
Hold on. Google? Enterprise? Small Business? Yes! Scott has been a champion for small businesses for as long as we can remember and he made a big announcement at the start of the panel: Google Apps have become members of The Small Business Web. And we’re tickled to be in such good company. Google Apps and The Small Business Web share a common set of goals and philosophies. Specifically the the belief that web apps are more valuable when they integrate and work together. We continue to work hard to integrate Google Apps into Batchbook and have some exciting things coming up in the not to distant future that will strengthen those integrations.
The panel itself covered a range of topics from why and how web apps can work together to how small businesses can leverage the power of the web to help their business grow. The folks at SXSW have posted the audio of the panel, go have a listen!
We’re back from the great state of Texas and slowly recovering from our SXSW experience. This was my fourth time to the event I’m amazed every year at how much bigger and more intense it seems: the city of Austin literally vibrates with energy 24×7, making it hard for old ladies like me to get their beauty rest.
This year, TJ Sondermann (our business development manager) and Christelle Lachapelle (marketing designer) made the trip to Texas with me. Because this was their first time attending, I asked them to share their impressions as folks who’ve never been to SXSW before. Here’s what they had to say:
Hi guys – just a quick update to say thanks to all who came to the Big Party for Small Business! We had a lot of fun and hope the folks who came did, too. A special thanks to Guy Kawasaki and Gary Vaynerchuk who took time out of their insanely busy schedules to come by, do a little bowling, and be good sports about getting their pictures taken a million times. Thanks, too, to our Small Business Web sponsors American Express OPEN and to Laura Thomas from Dell for providing some great last minute additions to our giveaway bags in the form of their hot new ruby red laptops, the Vostro V130. It’s great to see how much support there is out there for small business owners!
Here are a few pictures from the party, as well as some other Texas highlights. We’re really looking forward to doing our panel tomorrow with our pals from Google, FreshBooks, Formstack and MailChimp presenting on being Friends with Business Benefits, How Integrations Sell Apps in Salon D at the Hilton. If you are in Austin, swing on by to say hello!
Here’s a description of the panel, should be a fun one!
“The Small Business Web now has over 100 web app companies all serving the small business market. Together, we’re re-writing the rules for traditional business development and building the market for small business software through integrations.
So how has it not devolved into fisticuffs and mayhem? And why does integration help both the consumers and the vendors who are building the applications?
