tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351195.post-14695155242731388752007-07-19T21:32:00.000+02:002008-12-11T22:23:33.181+01:002008-12-11T22:23:33.181+01:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_w55opxuxeX8/Rp-9pNjcZuI/AAAAAAAAApk/QcEbmxYe1x4/s1600-h/decision.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_w55opxuxeX8/Rp-9pNjcZuI/AAAAAAAAApk/QcEbmxYe1x4/s320/decision.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5088994619662558946" /></a>When you start a new software business, you need to decide how to set up a business model. Where are your customers? How you will drain money from them? What exactly you’ll sell and what you’ll be just giving away for free? You have to name all those things unless you plan to be charity organization. <br /><br />When talking about choosing a business model one thing is worth emphasis – the model you’ve chosen on the beginning will most likely change. Assumptions you’ve made on start will appear to be incorrect and the whole business environment (or rather your knowledge about the environment) suddenly will change. And, you want it or not, your business model shall follow.<br /><br />You can quite safely assume that chosen business model will change. Especially when you run yet-to-be-established company, a microISV for example. Seth Godin mentioned that when he was writing about <a href="http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/03/happy_squidoo_d.html">Squidoo outcome</a>:<br /><br />“<i>What you start with is wrong. At least what we started with was. Fortunately, we planned on being wrong, and have revamped most aspects of what we built.</i>”<br /><br />The same thing we did with <a href="http://overto.pl">Overto</a>. On the very beginning we believed people would be willing to pay for additional information we can provide. After service growth and analysis which people come and how they interact with the service we changed our approach much. For the moment we don’t plan to give paid functionality – all features should remain free in predictable future (which in software business isn’t very long by the way). The way we see environment we act in is significantly different. We’ve just learned much about our audience and it wouldn’t be the best idea to keep the old track with that knowledge. <br /><br />By the way the actual business model is a subject for another post – I hope to reveal a bit of that in near future on the blog.Pawel Brodzinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04369257211504152485noreply@blogger.com2