Spreadsoft´s Path to Highway (1/2): Webshop

We founded Spreadsoft mainly as Excel outsourcing but its more or less shrinking business. Inside company we have think about new paths for Spreadsoft to expand and focus.

We already have done work with webshopping with DjsSportCards and other market news proof our intuitions. Webshopping is megatrend and the biggest business in internet. It could be interesting and profitable path. Here some stats about it. Year 2010 only in Finland 5,4 million citizens spend 10 000 million euro in internet.

Market watch says that webshopping is already huge business and rapidly growin up. Small piece of markets only in Finland means huge amount of revenues. Big piece in Finland, in Scandinavia, in Europe or in the world means billions of euros.

Otherside of the coins is that there is already lots of big players around. But also if we think positive, there already exists lot of good ideas how to develop great webshop experience for customer. Of course success is never sure but is good to go there where money is already flowing.

The next blog will be about Project Kinetic that is pure tech start-up we are developing with our partner. I don’t say too much now but it will takes mall´s physical stores to 2010´s. Stay tuned!

 

 

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The End of The Beginning

Year 2011 was exciting for me and whole Spreadsoft team. Launch of the new company is not easy as it sounds like. Year included lot of growing pains. How we should start? How to create webpage? How to start marketing and sales? How to catch right persons in right companies?

Year 2011 in nutshell

May – Registration of Spreadsoft ltd. in finnish company register

Summer months – Me I am doing memorable interrail trip in South- and East-Europe. Arto is finishing database order with Wärtsilä

August – I am back to Finlandand Vaasa, and development of Spreadsoft shall really begin. We start idea planning to grow up business and create webpages.

September – We found Ilona to help us. Webpage development is on and the first version is launched in www.spreadsoft.net

October – We found Silverlight and design specialist Sebastian Laitila who is also enthusiasctic about entrepreneuring. Sebastian join our team and take webpage project and change the design and turn it to Silverlight-based, animated and modern looking page. I also published The Original Entrepreneur  blog.

November – We make deal with DjSportCards and deliver Excel-based salesdatabase program there. Planning and creating webpage is continuing. Silverlight-based Spreadsoft-wegpage is published.  We also visited Know-How Expo and created contacts to Vaasa-area companies.

December – Last month and we all had a lot of rush with school exams and thesis.

 

Begin of 2012 feels good. We published totally new wegpage based on Silverlight, We started mapping of potential customers in Osterbothnia area and arranged promising business meetings. We also have some ideas of new technology based products to direct Spreadsoft more as tech start-up.  The year of Apocalypse will be intresting.

 

Marketing Mix

Here is Spreadsofts iron wire version Marketing Mix according to legendary 4P´s. You are millionaire if you produce right product, to right market, on right time, with right price. Should be familiar for all MBA. students 😀

 

1. Price

 

Spreadsoft Pricing is based in our customers benefit. If you will make a deal with us you could be 100% sure that the price is small compare to price.  We recommend monthly payments for stabile cash flow for us and better cash flow control for our customer but also one payment is possible.  Products are 100% Tailored to your needs and price as well. I could say our prices are somewhere around 1000e-30 000e depends size of project.

 

2.. Product

 

Actual Spreadsoft product is 100% Tailored Data Mining or Data Base services. With 100% Tailoring our customers could ensure that they have THE EXCLUSIVE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. For example prosessed data could come out of customers ERP-system. Products are running in our customer own IT-system or its also possible to use Cloud. Our products are named by Spread-tag, like SpreadCard,

Spreadsoft also offers Excell and Acces educationservices to Osterbothnia area in West Finland. Our education presentative is Finland´s most talented Excell Guru, Arto Kilponen.

 

3. Promotion

 

As our marketing muscles are quite small we are doing pretty much Guerrilla Marketing. It means that we try to get effect big as possible with minimal resources. Way to do Guerilla Marketing are blogs, social media, visiting expos, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn commercials etc. Also e-mails and phone contacts have beed used sometimes.

 

4. Placement

 

Spreadsoft product is sold after negociation, problem investigation and offer. All steps are possible to do in Internet with e-mail but also face-to-face and phone contacts are possible if needed. As we want to do our service 100% Tailored, we want to focus everyones precious time to develope superior quality services and reduce our customers expenses by using internet and wireless communication as much as possible.

 

We dont have official Marketing Mix description in use at Spreadsoft. Its view in my brain while I wrote this blog out 😀

Spreadsoft Revolutionizes The Way to Use Data

Its our new marketing material designed by Sebastian Laitila! (but only in finnish so far..)

 

In conclusion: Spreadsoft Revolutionizes data mining, data bases and way to use information efficiently 😀

WORD!

Know-How Expo

Today on Thursday, 24.11.2011, Spreadsoft-team: Riku (me), Arto and Sebastian take direction to Know-How Expo 2011 in Mustasaari with Artos Skoda. Our goal was to watch Expos supply and of course market Spreadsoft Excel-products and education services and create new contacts.

 

Our first Expo tour was very intresting experience. Meeting company personell in Expo is fun, it is efficient, there is nice atmosphere and all people (even everyone were silent finns :D) were talkative and enthusiastic. Our Spreadsoft-team got very good response on every booth and we got valuable contacts, mostly phonenumbers and names of IT-managers and we gave our first printed marketing poster.  We met personell from till exempel Vacon, Wärtsilä, Ruukki & Moventas.

 

My first impression is that we should do more tours to Expos. Expo is easy and fun place to meet new people, talk about business logic, IT-systems, plans and so on. We got one very nice idea from TEAK demonstrator to establish Excell education in Internet school via Silverlight based webpage.  We gave nice ideas till exempel to windturbine gear manufacturer Moventas to modernize their database technology.

 

The final word I can say that all Entrepreneurs should go to Expos and talk with other people. With three person team its easy to pitch up own ideas. If one of you is out of words there is still two others to continue.

Some time

If you dont have too much money to invest in your own company, you usually need to invest your time. I am university students and sometimes I feel that I can´t give enough time for Spreadsoft. It could be one lock for bigger succes, we dont invest enough time in our company.

Spreadsoft have huge potential because Excel, Acces and managment accounting in generally is so weak in other companies. Internet marketing is usually low cost or free but other side of coin is that in internet there is million other entrepreneur marketing their own things. Its great danger to drown in mass. Yes of course differentation is the big word but in reality its not as easy as you imagine.

Well traditional marketing and selling then.. Need a lot of time, my time and time of other members of Spreadsoft. I think the best way to start to grow up business from zeropoint is to choose somekind of compromise between this two (I know that somebody else would say that compromises never work 😀 ).

In Spreadsoft we have little bit different way of thinking. Arto´s opinion is that selling education services is “easy gate” to big profits. My opinion is that Excell Standarzation Services would be better. Anyway our goal is to market and sell both. And I have to splitt our recourses: Traditional methods to sell Education Services and Modern methods to sell Excell Standarzation Services.

The Pros and Cons:

+we will get experience about both methods
+we probably get both kind of deals
+bigger possibility to greater succes

-if share our resources do we have enough marketing/selling power?
-do we lost the focus if we try to do “everything” at once?

Big question:

Do shared recourses create bigger and stronger ensemble or do we lost our recourses for nothing? After all Education and Standarzation services are quite close to each other.

A Start-up. A Rock Band.

Every young and talented musician want to have his/her own rock band. This talented musician knows friends with different skills, people who can sing, write, play bass, drums and guitar. He/she suggests a dream, a vision: “Hey guys let’s put our our own band together and change rock history!” After a few moments of contemplating, friends understand that this is the challenge of their lifetimes.

 

The path of a successful band is long and hard. It needs endless hours of jam sessions, writing, rehearsals, new bands first gigs are free gigs in some dark corner of the local pub, but every band realizes that every new step is important leap to great success. They need people to understand them. They need people to listen their music and make them want it. It is not an easy task. Only time will tell if band was great success or  just fades away. But one thing is sure: all band members could say that they are professionals and they have had a hell lot of fun together!

 

As a CEO of Spreadsoft Oy I have realized as a rock band, a company cannot survive with only a one man. A successful company needs the band around it. A company is only a name for the group of people who do what they know best.  Every company needs talented players also. At Spreadsoft we have talented programmers as Arto Kilponen and Sebastian Laitila producing our expert services. Ilona, Tuomas and Pamela for marketing, business, selling and information. Me as a founder and CEO I try to be a manager of the band, I want to motivate and set targets for Spreadsoft.

 

Even as the Spreadsoft team have just started our path together, I see potential that I have not ever seen before. Like AC/DC, Beatles, Buddy Holly, Pink Floyd, and Rolling Stones, as well as revolutionaries like Apple, Microsoft and Google, I strongly believe that our name will make a mark  in history as another start-up company that started from Zeropoint to great success!