Karelia Software

I came across this wonderful presentation by Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, linked via the ever-useful twitter feed @smashingmag. (So useful, in fact, that I don't actually folow the feed — I subscribe to it in NetNewsWire, using a script I wrote that turns the embedded URLs into links for the feed itself so it's easy to open the linked pages. But I digress.)

Dropbox Startup Lessons Learned

This presentation has quite a few gems. Some particular favorites of mine:

• Search is a way to harvest demand, not create it.
• Typical Dropbox user: Hears about Dropbox from a friend, blog, etc. and tries it → "I didn't realize I needed this" → "It actually works" → Unexpectedly happy → tells friends.
• Three types of markets: existing, resegmented, new.  Marketing tactics for one market fail horribly in others.
• New strategy which worked well was to encourage word of mouth and viral spreading.

It's astonishing how Dropbox was able to enter an already crowded field and come to dominate. Their word-of-mouth techniques worked rather well, of course. (It's interesting to note that Dropbox used to have a paid referral program but they no longer do. I guess they felt they no longer needed it.)

You can draw your own conclusions from how Dropbox did it to your own business.

Some recent discussion on the MacSB list about what kind of system people recommend for handling technical support got me thinking that what is important for dealing with support is not what tool, but who is doing it.

One of the best things that has happened for us engineers at Karelia is when we found somebody who could handle front-line technical support for us. If you can hire somebody, part-time, to handle your support inquiries (and, as it often turns out, sales inquiries as well), and insulate you from all but the most complicated cases, it means that you can focus on the engineering that you are good at.

Taking this step is a critical early step for an indie developer to go from struggling to successful, especially when he/she discovers that once their software is released, they hardly seem to have time to do development any more!  Last year at WWDC, we were chatting with Kevin Hoctor about doing this, and look at where he is now! You're welcome, Kevin.

What does this have to do with marketing? OK, maybe this is just a little bit off-topic, but really the idea here is that if there is something that you are not that strong at, and you would rather focus your time on something that you are better at, then you should find some help.  And of course that means marketing as well as tech support.

This interview with Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba is the tenth in a series of interviews I've held with indie software developers about marketing Mac software. Previous interviews: Gedeon Maheux, Justin Williams, Gus Mueller, Daniel Jalkut, Rich Siegel, Oliver Breidenbach, Jacob Gorban, Jean MacDonald, and Kevin Hoctor.

Rogue Amoeba makes cool applications like the home audio streamer Airfoil, Audio Hijack Pro, the Radioshift audio recording tool, and the audio editor Fission. Paul Kafasis, whose title is CEO/Lackey of Rogue Amoeba, was kind enough to talk about marketing from his perspective.

While not in front of a computer, which he admits happens too infrequently, Paul enjoys/suffers through distance running, reads voraciously, and attempts writing humor. He can be found on Twitter as @PBones.

DW: First off, can you explain what you do at Rogue Amoeba?

PK: I handle the myriad tasks that let our top-notch programmers keep programming. That's a litany of things, from marketing and PR to interviews to all sorts of boring paperwork. Probably what I enjoy most is product design and development, working with our coders and designer to determine what we'll include in a new app, or an update. This sort of process takes knowledge gained from talking to customers, reviewers, reporters, and more, and distills it down, to shape what the future will be. I find that fascinating, and rewarding.