The software market is growing at an incredible rate. During 2020, the industry was already worth around $389.86 billion. Going forward, the market is expected to accelerate even faster, driven by the pandemic and demand for technology innovation.
For software companies, the quickly growing landscape is both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, the right companies can find more potential customers today than ever before.
On the other hand, there are countless competitors out there who could snag your client’s attention first.
So, how do you grow a successful software company in an increasingly crowded space? We’re going to share some top tips to get you started.
Step 1: Start with Research
Few things are more important to growing a successful company than having the wrong knowledge. Look at any profitable organization in the technology landscape, and you’ll discover they know everything there is to know about their industry, competition, and target audience.
Before you start investing in any plans to accelerate your brand’s growth, make sure you have plenty of information on the following things:
- Your industry: What kind of software are you producing, and what are the trends in this sector today? Are people already excited about your type of technology, or are you in an emerging industry? What are you going to do to impress your audience?
- Your target customer: Who are you trying to reach with your software? What are the likes and dislikes of your intended customer, their demographics, and behavioral information? Building a customer profile or persona will help you step into their shoes.
- Your competition: Who’s already active in your industry and offering software similar to yours? What makes your product or service different?
With all of this information, you should determine what your unique value is going to be.
What are you going to offer that outshines the competition, appeals to your target customer, and transforms the industry?
Step 2: Have a Financial Plan
A strong cash flow is essential to the success of any business – no matter the industry. With that in mind, it’s important to know how you will be earning enough cash consistently to keep the lights on. The good news for software innovators is that there are plenty of pricing options to choose from. You could sell software as a one-off purchase or make a regular income with subscriptions.
Software as a Service or “SaaS” pricing is often the most appealing to many of today’s software leaders. It ensures your customers can access the tools they need at an affordable monthly rate, while making sure you have recurring revenue to look forward to each month.
There are various SaaS pricing options available, from allowing customers to pay for products according to the feature sets they want or allowing for “pay as you go” payments, where customers only pay for the services they use.
Knowing how you’re going to handle pricing should give you a predictable way to manage incoming and outgoing expenses.
Step 3: Build the Right Team
Few technology innovators have delivered world-changing software solutions entirely on their own. Many of the world’s biggest organizations got to where they are today because they had access to the right teams and dedicated professionals.
If you want to grow your software company, look for people who can support your team in reaching a new level of productivity or performance.
For instance, a team of dedicated and passionate developers and engineers can help you to gradually add new features to your product to make it more competitive.
An expert marketing and sales group in your team can help you to reach new possible clients and spread brand awareness.
Remember, when hiring staff for your software company, not all of your professionals will be with you permanently.
You can save some cash by hiring contractors for one-off tasks like web development when you’re designing your new website or implementing a new PPC campaign.
Step 4: Prioritize Customer Relationships
Today, the most important part of running a successful business is maintaining the right relationship with your customers.
A good software company will turn one-off buyers into repeat customers and brand advocates with an excellent experience.
Think about how you can make life easier for the customers who want to use your software.
Could you offer an onboarding experience where you teach customers how to use the software effectively with on-demand guides and videos? Can you provide specialist support to people on your premium plan and plenty of self-service guidance for users on lower pricing tiers?
Look at every stage of the customer’s journey and how you can bring more value to it. A great way to get ideas on how to improve customer experience is to regularly ask for feedback, reviews, and testimonials from your customers.
Listen to what they like and dislike about your company and service, and build ideas from there.
Get Successful Software Company Growing
As companies continue to search for innovative ways to transform their day-to-day operations, opportunities abound for software brands. All you need to do to take advantage of this growing marketplace is learn how to make your business stand out in a competitive space.
With excellent customer service, plenty of research, financial planning, and the right team, you’ll be ready to turbo-charge your software organization.