How Marc Became Marc
I was on the W3C site recently (searching for some info on web standards) and came upon Tim Berners-Lee's home page. Fun reading. Tim is responsible for a lot more than he gets (or takes) credit for. I highly recommend browsing through it for some good information about the history of the web.
I was particularly taken by a section of his FAQ that described an aspect of web history I had forgotten about over time. Like many early web people, I was first introduced to it via NCSA's Mosaic. Most of the story of Marc Andreessen's development of Mosaic (and then Netscape) has been rehashed ad nauseum. But in his FAQ, Tim Berners-Lee writes:
Marc followed up his and Eric's coding with very fast 24hr customer support, really addressing what it took to make the app easy and natural to use, and trivial to install.... Marc marketed Mosaic hard on the net, and NCSA hard elsewhere, trying hard to brand the WWW and "Mosaic": "I saw it on Mosaic" etc.
There were a number of browsers available, as far back as the early 90's. But Marc focused much of his efforts on the customer experience (easy install and support) and marketed the hell out of his software. None of the browsers back then were particularly good (by today's standards), for instance trying to stop a web page from loading would often crash the browser. But in trying to differentiate a product (as Marc knew back then), it was often the other stuff that mattered as much as the code itself.
This is an important lesson for today's entrepreneurs. In these post-bubble times of tight capital markets, a number of companies are going it alone, financing their launch out of their own pockets. But even with little cash (remember, Marc and his group were college students) there is much you can do to differentiate your product beyond just good coding. As we've stated before on this site, software is increasingly becoming a commodity but good service will always be valuable.
Update: As David pointed out to me right after I wrote this piece, NCSA is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Mosaic's release this month.
This weblog is a great place to immortalize another classic silicon valley success story.
Intuit's startup story shares the evangelical customer focus as the key driver for its value.
The story was told by either Scott Cook or Tom Proulx at every single new hire orientation meeting (every two weeks). The seed of Intuit's renowned customer-focus culture was thus implanted in every new hire.
This story has also been told in many various publications and, similar to Andreesen's story, it surprises me to this day how many long-time silicon valley entrepreneurs haven't heard it or if they have, then haven't really "heard" it.
The relentless focus on the customer from Scott, Tom, the original founding execs, and later the entire company resulted in
--Follow Me Home Program: Every coding engineer and marketing product manager were required to actually "follow" early customers home (yes, people they knew) and simply watch, listen, and take notes to identify all the customer trouble spots
--National Sales Tour: in which every employee (finance included) traveled to cities/states of their choice (paid for by the company). The employee typically stayed with family/friends and during the day were required to visit all the local software stores in the area to help educate retail store managers of the key features/benefits of the product.
--Listen To The Customer Program Phone customer service at Intuit was free for every customer for years. Scott's philosophy was borrowed from his Proctor and Gamble days where the toll-free number was printed on every single consumer product package. The philosophy was simple. If the customer had ANY problem it was Intuit's duty to help them fix it. The product should be so quick and easy to use, they should never have to call. But if they absolutely had to call, an Intuit customer service employee would be there to answer their question for free.
The Results?
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Intuit became one of those few “word-of-mouth” companies with a “gotta-have-it” product. The product was so focused on the customer and exactly how the customer worked, it was uncanny for most people. It was definitely very different than most of the other software (in any category) that was being thrown at customers at that time.
What Did the VC’s Think?
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Well, the VC community almost struck out. Scott was asking for $2 million and was turned down by nearly every VC in the valley. The reason most given? Quicken was at least the 20th different financial software product competing for the marketplace by the late 80’s…and it was TOO EASY! The common paradigm back then was that software had to be loaded with features in order to sell. A product that was the first of 20 to have a check screen look like a check and a checkbook register that looked and worked just like the paper model couldn’t work. VC’s did not look much beyond that. Eventually, VC’s (KP, TVI, TCV, Sierra) did invest but only after Intuit was profitable, shortly before the IPO, and due to the fact that Scott wanted to draw on their expertise.
The Most Interesting Part of the StartUp Story?
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Intuit almost never made it. In late 1986, Intuit was trying to use retail banks as their sales channel. That was failing miserably…banks don’t sell things very well. Intuit was out of money, couldn’t make payroll, and VC’s still didn’t want to invest. Three out of seven remaining employees left to go find paying jobs. They gathered up their last $100,000 and put it all into airline magazine ads for the Thanksgiving to Christmas period as well as switching over to regular software distributors. Good thing the company made none of us may have never known of this top tier valley company.
To make this long story short – aa is right….focus on your customer, solve their biggest problem, and make your solution easy. If you do that, you may not have to market the hell out of the product. Many times, your evangelical customers end up doing it for you.