Micro Businesses
Carl Tyler of Epilio recently wrote, “How big is small?” referring to the definition of small and medium businesses (SMB).
This is an interesting question given that large established companies often have very different definitions. Microsoft, who makes the bulk of its revenue from consumers, markets SMB as 25-500 computer seats. Whereas IBM, who makes the bulk if its revenue from fortune 1000 companies, markets SMB as 250-1000 employees.
There is another market segment - the Micro Business (MB).
Until recently, most MB’s leveraged consumer products to run and manage their business. Microsoft Office and Quick Books are staple solutions.
Google has a compelling answer with Google Apps. Google has demonstrated its ability to handle “hosted services” to individuals on a very large scale - i.e. Gmail and now iGoogle. Google has even demonstrated managing large niche groups when they started taking over the email needs of colleges and universities.
Google Apps takes what they learned from managing very large scale services and applied it to micro businesses. You can read of a growing number of micro businesses - consulting firms, start-ups, entrepreneurs, etc. - are “outsourcing” to Google. Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady writes a good reference point.
If I were running a business larger than “an office of one” I too would look closely at Google Apps.
“Attacking the market” is often a execution of “starting from a point of comfort”. Microsoft starts from the consumer. IBM starts from the corporation. If you agree that most businesses start with one or two persons, and grow; then capturing them from Microsoft’s “comfort zone” is pretty easy. However, most people starting a business know enough to realize that consumer software and business software are different. Google gets that subtle and important distinction.
The closest “consumer” model that mimics a business is the “family”. Families need to share information. In the beginning, families start small. They grow. They diversify. They expand, geographically. Families need to coordinate and communicate.
Google gets the “family” analogy as well. They have a Google Apps offering for families. As the “IT Manager” for my family, I definitely get the value of what Google offers.
The family-targeted solution is also a good marketing method. Families are made up of persons (and pets but they seldom use computers). Persons found micro businesses. Micro businesses grow into SMBs. SMBs grow into large companies.
“Get them young” seems as good a hi-tech marketing campaign as it was for the Natzis. I’m not carrying the comparison any further.
