Why haven't we seen more tech companies focus on small mom-and-pop businesses?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4142357

by FogHQChris • 14 years ago

5 6 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I submitted this question on Quora, and got some nice feedback. Would love to hear the community about this?

http://www.quora.com/Small-Businesses/Why-havent-we-seen-more-tech-companies-focus-on-small-mom-and-pop-businesses-especially-the-Enterprise-Software-sector

adamtaa• 14 years ago

My company mental improvement ventures is specifically trying to focus on mom and pop, "very small businesses", and anybody else who wants a compact service offering at a relatively low price.

I saw the lack of focus ion this sector as an opportunity.

brydon• 14 years ago

We sort of do this in http://www.startupify.me/ where we work with existing businesses to find old problems that we can disrupt with new tech.

coreygoodie• 14 years ago

Just an FYI, I find the copy on your homepage to be a /bit/ confusing:

"We hire the best software developers in our community who are bored in their current jobs. We put them to work in partnerships with established businesses to co-create new product based businesses."

A lot of words there, could easily simplify.

PonyGumbo• 14 years ago

The product needs to be cheap enough that small business owners can afford it, simple enough for them to use it (many are not technologically savvy) and the value needs to be self-evident. It's a hard combination to crack.

nickfromseattle• 14 years ago

Its definitely possible to create a successful life style business for the founders and earn a good to great profit - but its hard to make the numbers work enough to grow past a few employees or get an exit.

Most small mom and pops are complacent about their problems. They either don't realize a solution exists, aren't actively looking for solutions, or are content with their inefficient work-arounds. This means you have to seek them out and sell them directly, whether its by phone, email or walking into their business - some products require a combination of the three.

You have to charge enough to pay a sales person, reinvest in the company and probably pay your own (and any other founders) living expenses as well.

If you're bootstrapped its likely you can only afford to pay a small salary (usually not even that though) plus commission. This means you cant pay enough to attract talented sales people, so you either get the bottom of the barrel or you get someone inexperienced who will leave the second they find a job that will earn them more money.

If you are charging a one time fee, its extremely hard. A subscription service is much more doable. Even then, you have to be charging $xxx-$x,xxx/month - and unless its a SERIOUS pain point its likely the small business could/should/will spend their money more wisely somewhere else.

- I've started one b2b SaaS company targeting small businesses and worked at another in the same industry.

munimkazia• 14 years ago

Because (most) mom and pop stores can't be bothered to actually spend money on technology, and then go and learn and implement it.

Why haven't we seen more tech companies focus on small mom-and-pop businesses?

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