Aaron Levie: Enterprise apps are sexy

A few years ago (like many startupers now) Aaron Levie, Box.net founder, was making a choice - what service to create. Now he tells why he had chosen the business application. Of course, every entrepreneur wants to create something cool and sexy, something that people will like - he says. And it's usually associated with such projects as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. But Aaron is sure that it's time for business apps to become "sexy." For many years, enterprise IT systems looked just as sexy, as Steve Ballmer in bikini. Due to the lack of competition (when a partner network was the major success factor), they were complicated, awkward and expensive. The emergence of SaaS and Cloud Computing technologies enables young companies relatively easily deliver new business apps. As a result, the market becomes more competitive, and forces IT systems to change.



Previously, selling enterprise software was like elephant hunting. Sales team attacked CEO and CIO board in the prospect company. And when the elephant was killed and money paid, who then cared whether end-users liked the system, and even whether they used it?

In the era of SaaS each end-user becomes a buyer. And not just because if the SaaS-service don't satisfy him any more - the company can simply not pay for his account in the next month. The main reason is that more and more we’re seeing bottom-up adoption of technology displacing top-down deployments. I.e. separate teams and departments begin using SaaS-applications to solve their problems, and then the new apps are spreading over the rest of the company. This is due to the fact that SaaS-apps offer free trial and you don't need to ask boss for money in order to start the process.

Because of this the traditional enterprise software sales channels are also being changed. Instead of increasing the number of sales-people, vendors focus on innovating and improving the product quality. Indeed, sales-team can't reach every end-user. Software vendors have to rely on the word-of-mouth marketing: if users like the product they will advise it to others.

So, if you're thinking about what startup to create - concludes Levie - think why people need another photo-sharing site? Enterprise software market, which has long been frozen by monopolists (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft) - is currently undergoing the revolution and provides plenty of opportunities for those who want to create a successful and sexy products.

See also: Top 10 Office suites