The Small Business Web (site)

While looking around on the Google Apps Marketplace, and some of the apps available, I stumbled upon The Small Business Web – “A directory of web apps to help small businesses bloom and grow.”

According to the site, “The Small Business Web is a movement to bring together like-minded, customer-obsessed software companies to integrate our respective products and make life easier for small businesses. While there are many products available for small business owners on the Web, the approach we're taking is to use each others APIs to provide a high-level of integration between these applications and create a more seamless experience for our customers.”

There is a lot to like in that statement, and a broad range of available options covered in the statement.  Notice that using APIs is the main method of integration, and some of the apps are integrated with multiple other apps.  For example, some accounting software may be integrated with expense tracking software, CRM software, email marketing software, and project management software.  I think for small businesses that can be both good and bad (like most things in life), but at this point I think the good will often outweigh the bad.

The Good

• Focused software, so the small business gets software that is very good at what it does.  This is a very key feature, and cannot be understated.  Having an app (and vendor behind it) that focuses on their core is a great way to take advantage of the latest and greatest functionality available.  I have seen deals lost due to a lack of this in a larger, more broad package
• Integration with other apps provides a simple way to leverage each application’s best-of-breed features
• Generally free to manageable pricing (usually per user or per month)
• All web-based software, so the small business owner does not need a server, server management, backup software and hardware, etc.  This can be a huge headache-saver and money-saver!
• Always using the latest features of the software due to the SaaS model

The Bad

• Multiple apps means multiple vendors, which means multiple support options, multiple payments to be made each month (although automated billing is probably used), multiple apps to learn and use and grow accustomed to their interfaces
• Integration may be used loosely, so you may be expecting more than is available
• You are paying a monthly or per-user fee for the life of the service, which can add up over time (or user counts!)
• If you are uncomfortable with knowing your data is at someone else’s house, this may not be for you.  I’m not going to harp on this one, because many, if not all, of these companies hosting these services have better data security than a small business would
• How do you decide which app to use?

I’m sure there are more positives and negatives, and if you have any please leave a comment.  Overall, I really like this idea, and will be attempting to evaluate some of these apps.  Many have a free trial or are free for one user, one project, etc.  I’m going to do my darndest to get some evals up on the blog soon!