Defending Pragmatism

October 2, 2006 at 4:47 am · Filed under Attention, Miscellaneous, Web 2.0

On the recent Gillmor Gang (MidTail Gang), you can catch me disagreeing with Jason Calacanis on rollups. He argues that only “loser” entrepreneurs sell their companies into rollups.

I argued that this is simplistic — that sometimes a rollup is the best choice for a company to make. He conceded that in a weak market (and again, if you are a loser), this might be the way to go.

Interesting that Jason articulates his point purely in terms of the entrepreneur: if you are strong, you find a way to win or fail trying.

Failure is a part of being an entrepreneur, but successful companies are made up of more than just the entrepreneur(s).

What about other stakeholders? What if the options are: “fail” or “rollup”? Your employees all get jobs and maybe the investors get to let their money ride.

I think that this will always feel like losing to the entrepreneur. This will never be the grand vision he or she was working towards. But winning and losing is not so black and white.

Am I defending a loser mentality? No, I think I’m just defending pragmatism.

Disclaimer: I have never been a part of a rollup nor am I seeking one out!

Tags: acquisition, Calacanis, Gillmor, Gillmor-Gang, Startup

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SaaS Lighthouse Program Flickers

May 17, 2006 at 8:28 am · Filed under Miscellaneous

From Don Dodge: Microsoft has unveiled the Microsoft SaaS Lighthouse Program.

This program is designed to help SaaS startups with licensing, technical, and marketing assistance.

I have been talking about this hole in Microsoft Partner Programs for sometime — a little on my blog, but mostly in person to Robert Scoble, Sam Ramji, John deVadoss, and many others. Pretty much every Microsoft person I meet. Microsoft has a good program (called Empower) to help the ISV startup and has, up until now, really had nothing for the SaaS startup. Why is the SaaS startup important? Because Web 2.0 companies are essentially all SaaS startups. Why are Web 2.0 companies important? If you don’t know, well . . . stop reading here.

It is obvious that Microsoft is trailing in the Web 2.0 community — this is embodied in the negative perception of Microsoft I found at a TechCrunch party: “anti-Microsoft” is a buzz word?. Most Web 2.0 startups are making use of free tools to build their sites and view Microsoft’s products (primarily Server 2003 and SQL Server) as being too expensive. While the productivity gains attained using these tools trumps licensing costs, Microsoft still needs programs that will help the adoption of their technology in SaaS startups.

Unfortunately, this program isn’t it.

You see, to get into this program, your company must have venture funding. A few problems with this:

• A venture-backed company can afford the licenses and training. Period.
• A Web 2.0 startup doesn’t start with venture money. In fact, very few startups begin with venture. So, the Web 2.0 startup gets no help from Microsoft until after VC? Kind of obvious, I know, but the startup has probably already built a service and released it before they get serious interest from a VC.
• The venture clause is likely a way for Microsoft to get external validation that the startup isn’t wasting their time and money. OK, but that is no way to increase adoption.

Now, I cannot claim that the purpose of this program is to help Web 2.0 startups (or to increase adoption of Microsoft techologies).

Just to be clear: it doesn’t.

Tags: Microsoft, SaaS, Startup, Web2.0

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Interested in ASP.NET for your startup?

March 5, 2006 at 6:47 pm · Filed under .NET

A question I ask Microsoft people frequently is: what are you doing to promote your tools in the Web 2.0 world / to help SaaS startups use your technologies?
I saw two posts today that, while not answering this question, seem to me like progress:

ASP.NET 2.0 Training Center

Microsoft (and CMP and O’Reilly and Dr. Dobb’s) have rolled out the ASP.NET 2.0 Training Center. This is to help PHP / JSP / ColdFusion developers learn about .NET. This looks like a great resource for developers to learn about the capabilities of .NET. If you are a developer using one of these other technologies, check it out. There is a free copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard in it for you if you view 3 webinars.

Obviously, this is a great tactic to get non-.NET users to see what ASP.NET has to offer — I’m sure they’ll get plenty of free-riders too

I found out about this from an O’Reilly post (see ASP.Net on a Roll). According to them, ASP.NET 2.0 is gaining leverage (as measured by book sales). Good news for Microsoft and for developers. ASP.NET is really a great way to build Web sites and services. I personally much prefer this to PHP, for example. Scripting languages are fine, but I’m in the strong-typing camp. And now since ASP.NET 2.0 can recompile your code on the server, it takes away a major scripting advantage.

Microsoft Startup Zone

In Microsoft Startup Zone Launches, Don Dodge announces the new Microsoft Startup Zone, sort of a portal into Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team. This site is full of resources for startup companies. While I still would like to see a partner program for SaaS startups, this site is worth a visit if you want to see what Microsoft has to offer emerging companies.

Tags: .NET, asp.net, Microsoft, SaaS, Startup

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