Tips for Software Services Startups

Today one of the easiest businesses that had created many entrepreneurs in India is Software Services. Starting from Infosys to My own Cogzidel had a modest start. All we have to invest is knowledge & time that is it. If you have good technical expertise and you can manage the things listed below you can start your entrepreneurial journey. Points listed below are my USP which I gained in these 8 years. This means I’m sharing my hard earned USP :)…

At least one founder must be a techie: Remember in early days you don’t have the fancy of hiring experienced developers. So you must be a good Techie or you must partner with a good techie. Early days of business is purely based on creating credibility & identity for your entity. And this can be accomplished by successfully executing projects…

Use power of Reverse Auction Systems: Don’t waste time in making cold calls and sending spam emails. Use sites like Scriptlance.com, Elance.com, Getafreelancer.com, Rentacoder.com and Guru.com. All those sites have good amount of webmasters who post their requirement. Just bid and win projects from there.

Though projects are of small size and low in revenue, concentrate in volumes… This will give you two advantages

1. Help you to work with more clients. Which effectively spreading your brand to many clients
2. You will get different types of projects which will help you to get different ideas and business avenues of making money…

This blog post ”How to be successful a programmer in Scriptlance.com” will help you understand ways to be successful in Scriptlance.com…

Hire fresher’s or students: Always hire fresher’s and train them or if possible try to hire students who have to do an academic project for 6 months so that you need not pay any salary for what they are learning.

Communicate with clients regularly: When you start getting clients from Reverse Auction Sites. Start collecting their contact details like email id’s, telephone no. & IM’s. Constantly communicate with them by sending new list of project executed, wish them for events like Christmas, diwali etc by this way your customers will always remember you and will keep giving you projects when they have a requirement.

Work on shared office: Look for companies which have more seats than their requirement and share their office space by paying a meager rent. This will help you in investing upfront in infrastructure. A nice ambience will help you to hunt talent & even if some client visits you will get a good image. So, it is your talent to source a better office. You can use services of companies like Cogzidel to hunt for shared offices…

Outsource Non Core Functions: Outsource non core functions like HR, Accounts and Admin to some consultancy firm where in you can simply concentrate on your core operations.

Cross Sell: If you finish a project successfully with a client. Immediately pinch for next project or cross sell other services or do both…

Promote your corporate site & Blog: Keep promoting your corporate site and blog in as many ways as possible. Sooner you get listed in search engine more chances of getting enquires thru your site. Some methods by which you can promote your site & blog,

1. Register with as many Social Networking sites as possible & grow your network. Add your company url in your profile page. More your contacts more publicity you and back links you will get for your site.
2. Add social bookmarking to your blogs and pages with services content in your site…
3. Have an email in your company name. Eg yourname@yourcompanyname.com
4. Always have your company email as your signature in both personal & official mail id’s
5. Have t-shirts with your company url
6. Have your company url stickers and paste it in your vehicle and your friends vehicle…
7. Attend lots of meetings like Barcamps, Unconference meetings etc and pass your business cards to other participants…
8. Approach famous bloggers and ask them to write a blog about your company…
9. Do Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing & Social Media Marketing(which is point no.1)

Update your blog regularly: Update your blog regularly, atleast there must be 2 updates every week. Also your post must me informative and targeted to your end user. Eg: Mr.Bala Murugan of Cogzidel Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd wrote this blog Provident Fund – Procedures, Problems and Solutions which got him 22 enquiries till now and still getting more and also most of his blogs will be related to his business…

Likewise understand your customer, employees, markets needs and write a blogs related to it. This will help you in viral marketing.

Tie-ups: Have lots of business tie-ups. For example 6 years back when I was small! I tied up with a famous script selling site and became their Official installer, that helped me to leverage the client base of that site and also partnering with a branded site will add up to my credibility and improved my brand…

Also you can make tie-ups to cross sell. If you are a programming company tie-up with SEO & Web design companies and cross sell your services & vice versa.

Partnering: Like tie-ups you can also partner with bigger companies like Microsoft, mysql etc and become their ISV (Independent Software Vendor). By this way you will getting business reference & publicity…

Participate in forums: Every technology/product has lots of famous forums. Actively participate in those forums and help trouble shoot issues. Also don’t forget to add your company url in the signature. More active you are more your brand spreads and more possibilities you can get enquires.

Start Developing Products: If you start doing the list of things mentioned above for a period of time. Your expertise on technology, knowledge on market needs and understanding of customers will improve. With all those knowledge you must concentrate on developing products which will help you to come out of Rat race and will give you a competitive advantage.

If you think you can add up to these points, please post them as comments…