TranslateHow Spiceworks grew by giving its product away
Focusing on the often-neglected information technology manager is paying off for Spiceworks Inc.
Founded by four former Motive Inc. executives, the Austin company set out four years ago to build software that would make life easier for the workers who oversee computer networks at small and medium-size businesses.
Before writing a line of code, Scott Abel, Jay Hallberg, Greg Kattawar and Francis Sullivan spent three months interviewing IT managers at 40 Austin companies to find out what drove them crazy about managing their systems.
The answer? Just about everything.
The bit that I though was interesting was:
Spiceworks user Justin Davison, a systems engineer and help-desk manager at material analysis company RJ Lee Group in Pittsburgh, is an example of how the company has won fans.
Davison tried Spiceworks last summer because he needed inventory management software and had nowhere near the $15,000 estimate he received from another company.
“Free was the right price for me,” he said. Read more
There are lots off really good quotes in this article its well worth a read.
Increasingly SpiceHeads refer to Spiceworks as the “Facebook of IT”: the place where they do their job and connect with other IT pros like them. To us, that is the ultimate validation of what we have been working on which we somewhat academically call a “social business application”. Social business apps have three ingredients (industry focus, a community, workflow tools & apps) and they weave these together in one seamless user experience. We use social apps (Facebook) to connect with friends; we use social business apps (Spiceworks) to do our jobs… with other people.
and I would like to thank all the readers who keep me doing this.