Description
Having an innovative product is a good start, but it doesn’t always make customers beat a path to your door. Hans Peter’s book is a toolbox with hacks that can produce great results for the small software company that has a great product, but not the deep pockets required for traditional marketing and sales.
★★★★★ Gregorio Navarro, CEO at Wepall, software for robots, Murcia, Spain.
Business development is not a synonym for sales. That is especially true in an international context. This book provides the framework for how smaller software companies can exploit the global potential of their products faster and without making the huge investments required by the traditional approaches.
★★★★★ Allan Martinson, CEO at XOLO, the virtual business platform, Tallinn Estonia
Regardless of the business or industry that you’re in, the global marketplace will always be larger than the domestic one. This book provides a framework and simple-to-implement tips for software companies with limited budgets to take advantage of their global potential with strategies such as thought leadership development.
★★★★★ Pamela Campagna, professor at Hult International Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
A great example is the products behind Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, where the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) components originate from the Danish company Navision. You can find the details of how that happened in my book, 5,460 Miles from Silicon Valley – The In-depth Case Study of What Became Microsoft’s First Billion Dollar Acquisition Outside the USA.
While getting access to international markets is extremely attractive and will multiply the value of any software company that succeeds, this is probably also the most difficult step you can take. As difficult as getting the business started in the first place. Especially if you are on a tight budget.
In this book, I share my experience and what I believe are fundamental principles that can be used by any small software company that has a great product, but only limited funds. My ambition has been to make this the handbook for how to enter foreign markets without betting the farm and failing fatally on the first attempt.
Calling it a handbook doesn’t imply that there is a single and linear approach that will lead to success for anyone anywhere. Such an approach doesn’t exist. Instead, it implies that you will find practical examples and down to earth discussions relevant to the subject. You can take away and try out those ideas that you find applicable to your business case.
It is on purpose that I mainly use case stories from companies that you probably don’t know. Because no one knows you either. That’s the main characteristic of your challenge. How to get business in a new market when you are a complete unknown and only have limited resources available.
The book is the second in the series of “how-to” books for revenue-generating professionals in the software industry, the first being the bestseller “Building Successful Partner Channels”.