Thank you all for the responses to my previous blog post. Your comments were helpful to me in obtaining an understanding of your perspective. My responses and thoughts to your comments (in no particular order) …
1. Michael … Well said! “Expectations that are set” have to match the “capacity one has for fulfillment”. This is one of the fundamental business ethics. Setting high expectations are not meeting them is incorrect; irrespective of honorable intentions. The reason it is incorrect is because it is possible that other people (colleagues and/or other companies) plan their life around this expectation and it affects them. I hear this loud and clear. We aren’t going to be great at this overnight – but we will be more cognizant of this now and show improvement.
2. Dnner … I realize that the majority of the support for DNN has come from hobbyists, micro-businesses and small developers. If they are the foundation on which this ecosystem has been built; it will be imprudent of us to do any differently. However, making a $199-00 offer may not be possible for DNN Corp – it doesn’t work for our business; it will hurt us. Just like everybody else, we can’t and won’t take actions that are difficult for us. However, the ecosystem has numerous SIs (1, 2 and 5 person shops) who likely want to and can make these kind of offers. From our perspective, we will continue to work with the ecosystem so this is a great platform for all participants (micro, small, medium and large).
3. Colm … The analogy with Windows is very interesting – and I agree it is conceptually similar even if specifically different. Interesting thinking and idea … we will keep it at the back of our heads … however, it might be something that is worth looking at 12 or even 24 months from now. There is plenty of foundational work (from a business perspective) that is yet to be completed. But, thank you.
4. Simon … On the query on definitive numbers … No, I don’t think we ‘definitive numbers’. We have an idea but that is speculative to some extent. We have the data but it is difficult to parse through it and obtain the intelligence. However, we will be focused on better intelligence gathering in the first post funding year of business operation. And … documentation will get better … one of the founders Nik Kalyani has that on his high priority list of items to do for this year.
5. Don … The hedgehog post was a fantastic read. I have read “Good to Great” and can’t agree with you more here …
6. Don … Yes, we will build relationships with vendors at different levels – because we need to be sure to cater to customers of all types. That is a work in progress …
Very importantly, I want to be upfront and say that a lot of the things mentioned will take time to conceptualize, plan and then execute. Also, not everything we do will be perfect. However, as you have seen before and will continue to see … our effort will be 100%; and if we make mistakes (which I am sure we will), we will learn from them and correct them.
Thank you once again for your responses and your support.