Pluggd.in is a blog about startups, entrepreneurship and tech in the Indian sector. I recently contributed a guest post on common SaaS myths and ways to overcome them.

Using online software to increase productivity and grow your business is a no brainer. I can’t imagine why any small business would not readily adopt SaaS. What’s holding them back (besides poor bandwidth penetration in some areas) when they can pay a monthly subscription, not have to worry about installation, upgrades and have access to the same tools that their competitors have? This is close to having ’software utopia’ for the small business!

Lets go back in time….

- People might not have been prepared to put their money with other people’s money when banking was established. Banking and online banking is mainstream now.

- People were probably afraid to get on an aircraft which weighed a few tones and promised to soar like a bird. Today, air travel is a given.

Back to the present.

Currently, we are witnessing one of the biggest shifts in enterprise software (software used for business) and as everything else, it comes with it’s own set of myths, mindsets and confusion. Here are a few I have experienced over the last few years from people who are still not ready to adopt online software for their business.

“My data is more secure with me than putting it on someone else’s server”

Your data is more secure at your vendor’s data center than your own internal network. Security is more than just about taking daily backups, maintaining uptime and setting up a firewall. It’s about password policies, encryption, intrusion detection, offsite backups, secure transmission, software updates, patching etc. If hosting or maintaining servers is not your core business then you are better off renting out software from a reputed vendor who understands all these things. This will ensure peace of mind in the long run.

Read More.

1. Multitenancy

2. Self-service

3. Community

4. Maintenance & Enhancements

5. Talk to Customers

I will add one more point:

6. Does the company Live, breathe, act and sell like a web company?

Secondly, through my readings and knowledge gathering I push stuff that matters to them. If I come across an article on ‘writing better code’, I will send it to the team. We watch and discuss startup videos together. If there is a new way to test code, we will make sure that we try out the tool and understand what it does. If someone gets stuck in evaluating a design, I will jump in. Or, if someone needs help in composing an email (yes this has happened) I am there if required.

My goal is to help people learn and become better at whatever they are doing. The worst thing an entrepreneur can do is to disconnect from the team and expect things to happen automatically.

NOTE - Teaching does not equate to  ’spoon-feeding’. If you catch yourself spoon-feeding then you probably have got the wrong person on the team.

Check it out…

Branding and Marketing Essentials for Your Web App by Alex Hunter from Carsonified on Vimeo.

I like to go over these startup videos to make sure we are not missing out on something or that we could do something better. Also, it is great to see how others are running their businesses and what particular metrics they look at. I want to re-iterate a couple of points made in the video, especially using DeskAway as an example:

Keeping things simple - end users could be non-technical people so make sure you keep features simple. Even if you have a large feature set, make sure they don’t come in the way of the user and don’t distract them on the main interface. Additionally, have comprehensive help sections and video tutorials to take the user through your app. Better yet, have help videos embedded within the interface of your app.

Measure - We might be guilty of not rigorous measuring, but I can vouch for the fact that the best thing about running a web business is the ability to measure everything - right from how many people came to the site, how many are returning visitors, how many converted to a free plan, how many upgraded and what features do they use the most! Besides Google Analytics (that’s what we use) you should create your own internal analytics dashboards to measure other activity related to your business and app. Basically, track everything and see what increases or decreases if you have taken an important decision - like a new marketing initiative or a new feature release.

Remove Features - In order to keep things simple it is important to remove features occasionally (you will know which one to remove if you measure!). We haven’t removed a lot of feature yet but if you notice we haven’t added a new feature in over a month. That has not affected anything - number of signups, client dropouts etc. So, bottomline, as long as you have your core features intact, you don’t need to go ballistic over feature releases. There are a lot of things that you can still improvise on within your current feature-set.

Anyways, if you have read through this much, it’s time to checkout this video:

Start-up Metrics that Matter by Dave McClure from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Every morning in Africa a lion awakens. He has only one thought on his mind: To be able to run faster than the slowest gazelle. If he cannot, he will die of hunger.

Whether you choose to be a gazelle or a lion is of no consequence. It is enough to know that with the rising of the sun, you must run. And you must run faster than you did yesterday or you will die.
” This is the race of life.”

- African Proverb

Taking your Site from One to One Million Users by Kevin Rose from Carsonified on Vimeo.