The last unconquered sector of the web
seeinginteractive.com
The last unconquered sector of the web
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Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#2"They took their hard earned money and opened a pizza parlor or a garage or a gift shop. They never really wanted to be on the Internet."
There it is. That will be right up there with "They never wanted to be an accountant" and "They never wanted to be a marketer" and all the rest.
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#3"They need a good solid website that has been created with SEO principles in mind and they need to be able to easily update it."
What small businesses really care about is cost effective customer acquisition.
A new website without a marketing engine attached is a tougher sell and is a crowded marketplace - you'll wind up selling against Intuit, Yahoo and other giants that have a virtually unlimited inbound flow of leads (small biz that buys QuickBooks etc).
SEO is effective, but slow.
Google's new hyper-local search features are perhaps a faster payoff for SEO but there are plenty of localized SEO / SEM companies already out pushing that pitch like Real Local.
All that naysaying notwithstanding, there's a great opportunity to build something incredible in the small business space but it's not unconquered from lack of trying.
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#4What is their differentiator from Yahoo! Web Hosting and similar ilk? IMHO, any technological advantage will eventually be copied (by companies who care to stay in the business).
Are they hoping to just take over as the new Geocities until someone else comes along? Is this market segment, with this kind of product, worth fighting over or does it get passed around when the current market leader gets tired of dealing with it?
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#5I've been thinking about this for years. I used to do a lot of small client work in the early 00s, and it was clear to me that high-quality custom work does not make sense for small businesses; the ROI just isn't there. At the same time, the services targeting this market just churn out crap.
Solving this problem is tough because small business owners are an extremely diverse set, and the needs of different types of businesses vary widely. Combine this with a general lack of internet savvy, a lot of folk wisdom picked up from friends and family about the web, and a do-it-yourself mentality means that an MVP is very difficult to sniff out.
The hardest part, though, is support. The price of the service needs to be relatively cheap, but it needs to have good support, preferably 12x7 phone support. Economically this won't scale unless the product is simple enough to minimize support needs. 10 years ago I think this problem was intractable, but with the internet becoming more and more ingrained in our daily lives, it's only a matter of time.
So yeah, personally I think this is a great market to be getting into.
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#6[deleted]
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#7I've been thinking about this for years. I used to do a lot of small client work in the early 00s, and it was clear to me that high-quality custom work does not make sense for small businesses; the ROI just isn't there. At the same time, the services targeting this market just churn out crap. Solving this problem is tough because small business owners are an extremely diverse set, and the needs of different types of…
"So yeah, personally I think this is a great market to be getting into."
Why do you think it's a great market to get into? Is it the size of the opportunity? Your first three paras outline why it's a difficult market.
BTW: Your description of the small business market is spot-on. I have also done small-client work (and still do) and agree with your assessment. It's just that your last statement seems out of synch with the sentiment of your comment.
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#8"They need a good solid website that has been created with SEO principles in mind and they need to be able to easily update it." What small businesses really care about is cost effective customer acquisition. A new website without a marketing engine attached is a tougher sell and is a crowded marketplace - you'll wind up selling against Intuit, Yahoo and other giants that have a virtually unlimited inbound flow of le…
It works a lot faster than you might think. Sure, if you're setting up a new site in San Francisco or Austin this kind of thing will be a much harder sell. But in small-town USA where no one knows what SEO means, it's actually really fast.
We've had people jump to #1, #2, and #3, of target keywords in under a week (we don't advertise this, btw, because it's unrealistic), but 30-45 days is very common.
There are millions of businesses in markets less than 25k people, and those people are our targets.
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#9But small businesses are still behind. Way behind. See http://buddingtonsphoto.com/ as an example.
What a great way to acquire new customers. Post the worst websites you can find on Hacker News, bombarding them with hits and laughter, and embarrassing them into upgrading.
(I'd call them and ask why they haven't engaged Seeing Interactive, but I just don't have the heart.)
Re: The last unconquered sector of the web
#10I've been thinking about this for years. I used to do a lot of small client work in the early 00s, and it was clear to me that high-quality custom work does not make sense for small businesses; the ROI just isn't there. At the same time, the services targeting this market just churn out crap. Solving this problem is tough because small business owners are an extremely diverse set, and the needs of different types of…
"So yeah, personally I think this is a great market to be getting into." Why do you think it's a great market to get into? Is it the size of the opportunity? Your first three paras outline why it's a difficult market. BTW: Your description of the small business market is spot-on. I have also done small-client work (and still do) and agree with your assessment. It's just that your last statement seems out of synch wit…
It was meant to flow from the previous sentence. The market has been hard to get into, but it's inevitably opening up due to growing familiarity with the web.