There are 5.2 million small businesses registered with the IRS who have 20 employees or fewer. This is obviously a tremendous market which has largely remained untapped and ignored. SM: How would you define the portion of the small business market that Intuit was focusing on? Was it under 100 employees, or under 1,000 employees?
Vertical Strategy Viacom’s Internet properties are targeted to the youth and the young at heart. Entertainment for the youth market is the underlying tone in all its digital properties. The Company’s sites cater to Pre-teens, Teens and College Kids through its portfolio of Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 sites. It has created a niche
SM: A key issue with small business facing products is how do you reach your customers, give that it is such a fragmented market. What did Intuit do? JH: It was a direct marketing play. Historically, as computers came down from the enterprise level (the IBMs of the world), they went to the mini computer
SM: All of these things which we have discussed are a discipline in and of themselves. There are but a few people in the industry who understand this at the level and depth that we have discussed today. For companies who are coming up to speed, there is a lot of need right now because
Introduction Viacom, Inc. is a leading entertainment conglomerate operating through two segments: Media Networks, which includes MTV Networks and BET (Black Entertainment) Networks, and Filmed Entertainment, which includes Paramount Pictures Corporation and Famous Music. The Company owns some of the most popular entertainment brands in the world including, BET, Famous Music, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick
For years, I have looked at the small business market as an opportunity that technology vendors need to attack. For years, however, the common wisdom in the venture circles have been that it is much too difficult to sell to small businesses. With the advent and popularity of Software-As-A-Service (SaaS), this sentiment has started changing.
SM: Webex is a very special case. They enabled a lot of the telephone selling by making it possible to demonstrate products over the web. AS: Exactly. Not only do they provide the technology, but they are a showcase for using the technology they provide. It is an incredible machine in terms of process. They
Siva Kumar emailed me a great article on the state of Venture Capital in Silicon Valley, in response to my VC-Entrepreneur Compensation Disbalance piece. I suggest you read the article, but here are some sharp excerpts: :: It’s not that venture firms are destitute. They’ve got plenty of base hits. But the home runs are