Create more revenue streams, improve existing products
February 3, 2010
Online backup. There are hundreds of companies who provide online backup – Carbonite, Mozy, Intronis, Corevault, Databarracks, Dropbox, Barracuda, and the list goes on.
At first glance, it seems difficult to have a competitive advantage in such a crowded market.
The Product and Development team of a French company I recently spoke with is currently implementing what will give them a very practical advantage in response to a very prominent human trait – forgetfulness.
The company OEMs and sells their software to USB manufacturers who then act as global distribution partners. During their product management process, they realized there was an additional market and pain point they already had access to where they had been leaving a lot of money on the table.
The end consumer. Their product was already being used by hundreds of thousands of end consumers… who found themselves in deep trouble or had serious security issues when they lost their easily-misplaceable USB flash drives.
Using their existing customers as a lead generation system, they provided 3GB storage in the cloud for free for three months. Everything the consumer backed-up on the USB flash drive would also be saved in the cloud that had build with the help from their growth capital advisors.
This is sticky for two reasons
- People will be even more scared to NOT double back up their stuff – and will inevitably sign up for the monthly subscription – recurring revenue!
- Realization of the convenience of cloud storage and remote access to their stuff – who doesn’t like that?
There are very few products or services that cannot be improved upon… I encourage you to think of even one. When trying to improve your current business or start up a new business, first, think of what you do every day, and how it could be made easier or how it could better help your customers.
Be creative, develop as many revenue streams as possible!