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Helpstream

Don’t Bury the Map With the Treasure:  Thin Clients Trump Apps in Walled Gardens

Don’t Bury the Map With the Treasure: Thin Clients Trump Apps in Walled Gardens

By Bob Warfield on July 9, 2013

One of the questions every SaaS company will have to be able to answer for their customers is, “What happens if you go under?”  It’s actually a fascinating question, and one you have a chance as a vendor to think about and turn to your advantage.  For example, one of my SaaS ventures was Helpstream. […]

Posted in Featured Posts, Technology / Software | Tagged apple, Cloud, Feedly, google, Google Reader, Helpstream, iOS, iPad, SaaS, Safari, service, strategy | 4 Responses

Converting Content-Audience Fit to Product Traction

Converting Content-Audience Fit to Product Traction

By Bob Warfield on December 18, 2012

Jason Lemkin has a new post out about gaining traction after your product ships.  He says it’s hard, much harder than building the 1.0 product which was already hard, and he makes some concrete suggestions on how to go about gaining traction: –  Finish hiring your core team.  Presumably you’ve left the sales and marketing […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged bootstrapping, Helpstream, marketing, SaaS, strategy, venture | 1 Response

The Gas Pump Theory of User Interaction

The Gas Pump Theory of User Interaction

By Bob Warfield on May 28, 2010

You can learn a lot from simple things in life.  Simple behaviors that run below the level of consciousness make decisions for us all the time. Take the humble gas pump as an example.  Pretty simple to operate.  Yet I noticed some time ago that gas station operators were changing the order in which they […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Business, Customer Management, customer service, Filling station, Helpstream, user interface | 1 Response

Startups Need Starters

Startups Need Starters

By Bob Warfield on April 13, 2010

Just a short post for my Helpstream Learnings series today: Reading 37Signals latest book, “Rework“, has crystalized a few thoughts I’d been having since Helpstream.  It’s a great read, BTW, if you haven’t already checked it out. This particular post is about Starters.  The authors of Rework want to drop the term “entrepreneur” and switch to […]

Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged 37signals, Entrepreneurship, Helpstream, hiring, startups, strategy, venture | 1 Response

References and Pricing for SaaS Startups

References and Pricing for SaaS Startups

By Bob Warfield on April 5, 2010

Getting the pricing right is a pretty critical part of any startup’s early stages.  And it’s hard.  The first task when selling business software (I differentiate from the consumer software experience) is getting anyone to pay anything for it and then be willing to talk about it so you have references.  Indeed, there is often […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Discount, Helpstream, marketing, pricing, SaaS, saas pricing, saas sales, software sales, strategy, venture | 1 Response

Three Deadly Sins of a Startup CEO

Three Deadly Sins of a Startup CEO

By Bob Warfield on March 30, 2010

I have had the unpleasant experience of being involved with or hearing quite a bit of the blow-by-blow associated with the replacement of a CEO at one company or another.  While I have not experienced the ultimate displeasure of being replaced myself (despite “ousted” rumors to the contrary!), I can tell you that it is a […]

Posted in Business | Tagged Board of Directors, BOD, Business plan, CEO, Helpstream, Start Up, venture

Minimizing the Cost of SaaS Operations

Minimizing the Cost of SaaS Operations

By Bob Warfield on March 29, 2010

SaaS software is much more dependent on being run by the numbers than conventional on-premises software because the expenses are front loaded and the costs are back loaded.  SAP learned this the hard way with its Business By Design product, for example.  If you run the numbers, there is a high degree of correlation between […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Cloud, cost reduction, data center, EC2, enterprise software, Helpstream, mySQL, Open source, platforms, SaaS, salesforce.com, Software development, startups | 7 Responses

Freemiums for SaaS

Freemiums for SaaS

By Bob Warfield on March 25, 2010

Time for my first Learnings post about my Helpstream Experience. Freemiums are a fascinating subject.  Whole books have been written about the concept of extracting value from something that’s free.  The FOS (Free Open Source) movement is all about free, and we benefited tremendously from it at Helpstream.  Not one single software license fee was […]

Posted in Business, Featured Posts | Tagged Business Model, customer service, freemium, Helpstream, Open source, SaaS, sales, sales compensation, software as a service, softwre sales, strategy, venture | 3 Responses

Helpstream CEO Gone.  Or is it the Company?  Either Way,  We Gain a Great Blogger.

Helpstream CEO Gone. Or is it the Company? Either Way, We Gain a Great Blogger.

By Zoli Erdos on March 22, 2010

You heard the good news here first, so it’s only appropriate to be the first to follow up: Bob Warfield is likely out as CEO of Helpstream, a Social CRM SaaS provider.  The company website still lists Bob as CEO, but his blog post this morning implies news not yet officially announced: My Startup Track […]

Posted in Business | Tagged blogging, Bob Warfield, deadpool, Enterprise Irregulars, Entrepreneurship, Helpstream, Social CRM, startups

My Startup Track Record

My Startup Track Record

By Bob Warfield on March 22, 2010

Success.  Success.  Failure.  Success.  Failure. That’s it, that’s my story.  It’s been my heartbeat.  I’m a Serial Entrepreneur with a 60% track record, which is comforting, except that I’m coming off my latest failure at Helpstream.  60% is way in excess of what most any VC ever gets.  It’s way better than anyone I know, […]

Posted in Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts | Tagged Entrepreneurship, Helpstream, IPO, Merger & Acquisition, Social CRM, startups, strategy, venture, Venture Capital | 1 Response

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