Digital Media Buzz > Small Business Collaborators Compete With Google

Small Business Collaborators Compete With Google

By Dave Fidlin

In a move reminiscent of David taking on Goliath, a group of nearly 40 small software-as-a-service companies have linked arms with one another to remain competitive against the likes of Google.

Since its inception in March at the SXSW Conference in Austin, Texas, Small Business Web has been growing. Co-founder Pamela O’Hara says five companies were on board at that time. As word — and networking — has grown, more small online software vendors have agreed to be part of the loose organization. “It’s a very informal movement,” says Mikkel Asger Svane, CEO and founder of Zendesk, a San Francisco-based help-desk software company, that affiliated its name with SBW this summer. “It’s just like-minded companies that have similar interfaces.”

O’Hara says she got the idea of integrating products from other companies several years ago. Her company, BatchBlue Software, is based in Barrington, R.I., and produces user-friendly software for small businesses with a limited staff and budget. She is the company’s president.

As BatchBlue was getting off the ground, O’Hara was looking to partner with another company that would enable BatchBlue clients to email lists of contacts they organized with BatchBlue software. That effort stalled after several attempts, until the company teamed up with Atlanta-based MailChimp, an email marketing company. The two companies began integrating their products by using MailChimp’s application programming interface.

“(SBW) started as the very seed of an idea, and snowballed very quickly,” O’Hara says. “We’re open to growing with other similar companies that have the same philosophy and are open with their products.”

Daryl Bernstein, CEO and co-founder of Santa Barbara-based RightSignature, says his company has benefited greatly since becoming part of SBW midway through the summer. RightSignature offers software that gives users an opportunity to sign documents online.

“It’s been a great vision,” Bernstein says. “There’s a nice cluster of tools available to us, and everything’s integrated. Each one of us can all focus on doing our one thing really, really well.”

Bernstein says RightSignature has integrated several other company software products into its business model. For example, RightSignature customers also have the opportunity to purchase software from FreshBooks, an Ontario-based company that produces invoicing software.

Zendesk, founded three years ago, also has linked with FreshBooks for similar reasons to RightSignature. Additionally, Svane says the company has benefited greatly by integrating with MailChimp for marketing efforts. Most companies in the SBW integrate with at least five other companies.

“This has demonstrated how traditional software is being changed completely,” Svane says. “With open architecture, it’s business turned upside down.”

At BatchBlue, O’Hara says business has increased since the SBW has started to take off. She says at least half of the new business in recent months can be attributed to the partnerships. The heads of the other software-as-a-service companies participating in the open forum echo her sentiments.

“We’re adding to our customer base by doing this,” O’Hara says. “(Other companies) are getting exposure to our audience. We’re getting exposure to their audience. We’re doing very little paid advertising, so that gives us the opportunity to invest our money into business development.”

O’Hara says there are endless possibilities for the SBW in the future. “It’s a very exciting time for all of us,” she says. “It’s been nice seeing it click with so many other businesses.”

O’Hara says she envisions participation continuing its upward momentum and might eventually have a more formal dialogue session with all of the companies within the SBW.

“If we can talk as a group, we all will win from this,” she says.