Carsonified

As many of you probably know, we’re running a large Web 2.0 event in London called The Future of Web Apps.

There is an exciting opportunity for web app startups to get on stage for a full 10 minutes in front of the entire audience. It’s called the Startup Spotlight and it’s an amazing PR opportunity.

There are only three spots left, so if you’re interested, please email our VP of Sales, Andrew Calvo on andrew at carsonsystems dot com. The cost is £5K.

Hope to see you there!

We just bought a Dyson vacuum.

For those of you who don’t know, Dyson makes the world’s best vacuum cleaners (or “hoovers” as my British wife would say :D).

Why did we choose Dyson? Because we knew that their vacuums never lose their suction. So we ordered one and to my delight, it arrived today (sad, I know).

I was already sold on how great their vacuums are so I certainly didn’t need any more convincing when the box arrived. But here’s how Dyson has converted me into an excited and devoted customer: they kept telling me how great their product was after I paid for it.

The box is literally covered with pictures, diagrams and words proving how great the product is! Here’s are a couple examples:

This one demonstrates how easy it is to use on stairs and also shows how you can easily attach the tools (so they don’t get lost).

The image below shows how you can carry it up the stairs without tripping over the cords and hoses. It also shows how easy it is to store.

The photo below shows three great advantages to the vacuum (helps allergy sufferers, costs less to run and, guaranteed for two years).

The photo below reminds you that not having to buy filters (a key benefit to the vacuum) will save you money.

I’m hooked

I was already convinced that Dyson made a great vacuum, but after the purchase is when Dyson converted me into a fanatical customer.

I think this lesson can be applied to almost any business. Take time to remind your customers why your service or product kicks ass after they buy it. It will turn your loyal customers into die-hard fantatics.

Before the announcement of iPhone, building web apps for mobile devices was very hard to justify financially. We would never consider it because the market is too fractured with different devices with different standards. It was a complete nightmare.

Not anymore.

Better Mobile Browsing

The iPhone’s browser looks to be very close to Safari (this is just a guess, but a safe one I believe). This means that with some clever planning, web app companies like us can build apps that reliably work on both desktop and mobile platforms!

Access to standard OS features

Not only is the browser going to support standard web apps, but because the phone runs OSX, you’ll have all the standard access you’re used to when it comes to the OS.

Power to the people!

This blows open the market for web app companies. Now we can build web apps that can be used at your computer and on the go. Holy crap!

Of course, most web apps aren’t suitable (or useful) on mobile phones. However, there are a ton of great ideas that could be the perfect marriage of desktop (while you’re at the office) and mobile (while you’re out-and-about).
Not only this, but 3rd party software developers are going to have a hay-day with this. We should see an explosion of quality, useful mobile applications.
You may be saying, “Well, that’s great for everyone who owns an iPhone. But what about everyone else?” True, but if the success of the iPod is any indication, we’ll see massive worldwide adoption of the iPhone.

I can’t wait to think of our next web app idea :)

I was browsing TechCrunch today and was surprised to see an article about DropSend (one of our web apps) called “Anatomy of a Failed Merger“. It’s about my writeup of the failed DropSend-YouSendIt acquisition.

As I said in the comments, the reason why I wrote the post was to help other small companies like us, to understand how these negotiations work. It’s pretty scary and confusing if you’ve never been through it!

If you’re hoping to sell your web app or company some day, I hope that you find it useful.

If you’re in the business of building or designing web sites and web apps, you need to be using my current setup. A brash thing to say? Not once you see it.

New Parallels Beta changes everything

I switched from a PC to a MacBook Pro about three months ago. One month ago I bought Parallels ($79) and last week I upgraded it to the new Beta (Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 3036 Beta).

It is freakin’ amazing. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a perfect computing experience. Seriously.

Here’s why: You can simultaneously view IE 6/7, Firefox PC, Firefox Mac and Safari (and any other browsers you want, whether they’re Mac, PC or Linux) on your OSX desktop.

No switching back and forth between virtual desktops - it’s all right there (click for larger image).

Here’s another screengrab to help you understand how it’s working (click for larger image).

In the above image, I’ve got IE7, Firefox PC, Safari and then Firefox Mac.

In addition to this amazing capability (called “Coherence Mode”), its got these great new features:

1. You can share the clipboard between OSX and XP/Vista
2. You can drag and drop files between a XP/Vista window and an OSX window
3. No need to “click into” the XP/Vista window. As soon as the mouse is over the XP/Vista window, it’s active (if you’re in Normal Mode instead of Coherence Mode).

How to set it up

Convinced? Here’s how to get rocking:

1. Buy a MacBook Pro
2. Buy and install Parallels
3. Download and install Parallels Desktop for Mac Build 3036 Beta
4. Install XP/Vista (you need to buy a legit copy)
5. Boot up XP/Vista
6. After it’s booted up, go to “Tools > Install Parallels Tools …” (click for larger image)
   
7. Once Parallels Tools in installed, open up the browsers you want to test
8. Go to “View > Coherence” (click for larger image)
   
9. You’re done! (Click for larger image)
   

Still not quite perfect

As with most things, this setup is not 100% perfect (but it’s very close). If you don’t use the XP/Vista windows for a little while, the screensaver starts up and takes over the whole screen behind the active OSX window. However, you can deal with this by turning off the screensaver in XP/Vista (click for larger image).

Time to switch

There are strong feelings on both sides of the PC/Mac debate, but this is the clearest and most compelling reason for switching to a Mac. You get all the benefits of the beautifully designed and executed OSX interface, with all the access and testing you need on XP/Vista.

I know that not everyone can afford to go out and buy a MacBook Pro, but if you can, what are you waiting for?

Now that we’ve built two web apps, we’ve got a good perspective on what it takes to make them succeed. This is my conclusion: You’ve got to be prepared to spend cash to advertise your web app.

I’ve been spending one day a week on Amigo and it’s painfully obvious that the blogosphere is only going to get us so far.

• Yes, Bare Naked App was a great guerrilla marketing activity (and a lot of fun)
• Yes, getting on TechCrunch was handy
• Yes, a lot of folks in the Web 2.0 community know about Amigo

However, none of that is yielding an increase in revenue. We’ve got a long way to go until we build a critical mass of people who use Amigo. This demonstrates the point of this post very well: Building a financially successful web app takes hard work, clever marketing and advertising dollars.

Signal Vs. Noise is not normal

I have a feeling that far too many people (including myself sometimes) think that the blogosphere is a free ticket to successful web apps. This just isn’t the truth. We all look at Signal Vs. Noise and think “All we need to do is launch a great blog like the guys at 37signals. It will create buzz around our app and then we’ll see the users flow in.”

Well, I just don’t think that’s the case. Signal Vs. Noise is an anomaly. It has a loyal readership (myself included) that is the perfect market for their apps. Jason and crew has done a fabulous job of creating passionate users. However, I don’t think their experience is easily repeatable.

Yes, the blogosphere is powerful

I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t have a great blog. It is definitely an extremely important part to any web app. However, it’s vital that you set aside money in your cash flow for advertising after you launch.

I called a friend today that runs a successful web app (the revenue from one app supports the entire company) and he said they often spend $10,000+ per month on advertising.

We were lucky with DropSend

So how did DropSend become successful with so little in advertising? There are two reasons:

1. When you need to send a file, you’re often desperate and will often pay for the ability to do so
2. It’s viral as it tells the file recipient about DropSend

Most apps (including Amigo) don’t benefit from these two vital elements. Most of them need good ol’ fashion advertising to spread the word.

Plan for the long haul

So when you’re planning your budget for your new web app, don’t forget that you’ll most likely need to spend money on advertising. Yes, there’s always a chance that your rocket to success because of some great press, but it’s far more likely that you’ll have to wage a long term marketing and advertising battle to rise to the top.

Having this long term perspective (instead of expecting to achieve success very quickly) will separate the truly successful web apps from the rest.