Robin Blandford

I just can’t see where ewrite is going. Maybe 5 years ago… but not now – this is totally saturated.

In fairness I’ve only had a look at their homepage and know no more than that – happy to be corrected!
Happy to read the blog but I’m not sure its ground breaking enough to be interesting!

Conor O'Neill

Not to speak on Gordon’s behalf but from what I’ve seen at the S end of SME, the majority of Irish biz have nothing, not even an eircom.net email address. I’ve done a bunch of Tech-Checks for companies like that and they all want a web-site but think it’s going to cost them €5k. I see them as the perfect target market for eWrite and the challenge is to market effectively and cost efficiently to such a broad fragmented audience.

The slower than expected take up on Tech-Checks tells me that the marketing to this audience needs to be iterated a lot until the right message is found. The first round of advertising seems to have missed the mark.

On the biz blogging side, there are still tons of people out there who have great product ideas but absolutely no idea how to grow a business. They can all potentially learn a lot from other small biz if a blog is bringing up the critical things that they face daily.

Robin Blandford

Sure… that’s why I’ll give the blog a chance.

While there might be money to be made from these small businesses, they will be a hassle. When it comes to technology they are typically grinders who are very difficult customers who demand lots of 1-1 time and pay very little.

Anyone who will be an easy client I would jut point at http://sites.google.com and manage their service as a partner.

Conor O'Neill

I take your point about hassle. It’s the classic dilemma about 10 x 1000 or 100 x 100 in any business. I think Gordon and John have been dealing with SMEs for years and probably know the pitfalls better than most of us. And in fact that’d be a great topic to discuss on the blog!

Gordon

Hi Robin, I agree that this area is indeed saturated but I believe only for those with a good level of IT knowledge.

Each person I talk to recently has been in the same situation. They got a site designed some years ago, it cost them a lot and now if they are looking for a change, their contact has moved on. They are unaware of the many options available to them.

My goal is to provide a very easy to use piece of software to allow users to keep their site up to date. When I meet people it sells itself. I can let them use it for a minute or two and they love it straight away. They love the low cost too.

I have plenty of experience in dealing with tough clients, I know whats ahead of me. To keep the cost low and prevent myself from being up all night keeping on top of things I automate anything I can. Im able to set up 100 eWrite Lites as easily as set up 1. These computers we sit at every day don’t need to be limited by us, they can do a lot on their own.

Of course I don’t have everything covered, and thats why Im interested in documenting the work im doing. I want people to scrutinize the process, the code and me and make eWrite a solid, highly useful and essential tool for any small business.

The blog is going to be at http://blog.ewritecork.com/

Robin Blandford

Hi Gordon, Thanks for the message and adding me on twitter.

I’m fully behind you on this – I think if you keep eWrite extremely simple and not attempt to compete with the bigger more fully functional competition or featuresets for techies i.e. “Do simple REALLY well” for the guys you’re aiming at, encourage automated sign-ups for serious scale you may well have something.

Either way – I really look forward to reading the blog. I think its a fantastic idea and something that if I was in your shoes I would definitely be doing – without question.

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