Don’t worry, we see the irony. Here is a company that specialises in shortlisting software that is now giving you a long list of software.

But there’s good reason for this. The feedback on our online recommendation and comparison service has been fantastic, but we have also heard from many customers that they wanted to see the full list of software that sat behind it.  There seems to be a certain level of comfort people get from seeing the long list of options. Of course, we suspect that when confronted with a long list of available software, you will appreciate even more the value of our shortlisting service

So, without any further ado, welcome to the Software Shortlist Directory.

The directory includes over 700 products in popular categories such as Accounting, Email Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Project Management, and Small Business ERP.  And more categories are being added all the time.

What is particularly distinctive about our directory is that it focuses only on small business software. With no consumer or big enterprise solutions to wade through, you save time and money not having to consider options that aren’t relevant to you.

You will also find the quality of the listings is better than most. We have applied strict selection criteria as part of a global search process to create a powerful resource for small businesses.  Our aim is to build an extensive yet high quality list of software — and if faced with a choice, we have gone for quality over quantity.

What are you waiting for? Go check it out at www.softwareshortlist.com/software/directory.html

Software Directory

One such lesson was that, although people may struggle to make good decisions when faced with overwhelming choice, they want the comfort of actually seeing the long list of available options.

While our online recommendation and comparison facility is proving just as valuable as expected … we realized many customers would value seeing the comprehensive list. As such, Software Shortlist is now developing an extensive software directory for small & medium businesses as an additional offering.

Software Selection Consulting

We have also been pleasantly surprised by the demand from small business customers for help with software selection. Not only have we seen very good traffic numbers and site usage during our beta phase, we are already getting a number requests for software selection consulting assistance from customers. In responding to our customers’ needs,  Software Shortlist has now added a range of software selection consulting services to our offer.  In fact, we have just concluded our first major project, evaluating online database software for a specialist marketing agency.

Independent Software Comparisons

Of course, not all of the lessons learned required changing things. We have had great feedback from customers and vendors, validating our existing approach … such as the emphasis we have placed on the independence of our online software comparison service. This focus on providing independent reviews and suggestions will continue as we evolve the Software Shortlist offering and expand our coverage across more software categories. Accounting is very nearly ready for release, and email marketing not far behind, so watch this space….

Services for Software Vendors

On the vendor side of the equation, we have been fortunate to have received detailed feedback from a close network of supportive vendors. Plus we’ve seen an unexpectedly large number of unsolicited enquiries from other software companies.  Together, their input has been invaluable in helping us design and prioritize a range of improvements to our website.

Among other things, we learned that many independent software vendors (ISVs) would value us offering other marketing services … such as conducting customer feedback surveys, gathering testimonials from their users, and developing a vendor benchmark study. More information on these is available on our vendor information page.

Watch this space…

So, a big thank you to all the SMBs, vendors and service providers who took the time to explore our services and provide us with input and advice. Your feedback has provoked some intense thinking and discussion behind the scenes here, and we’re excited about bringing you an expanded and improved range of services under the Software Shortlist banner. These new offerings will be rolled out gradually over coming months, starting with the official launch of our directory very soon. We will also update our home page and ‘how it works’ sections to reflect the changes.

Nearly 18 months ago, sitting in a cafe overlooking Melbourne’s scenic Yarra river, we were grappling with a perplexing question:

Why don’t many small businesses take full advantage of the powerful and cost-effective software solutions available?

Melbourne's Yarra River (photo: Edwin 11 on flickr.com)

We realised some of the great software we personally used (e.g. Basecamp, Campaign Monitor, SurveyMonkey) was simply not on the radar of  many small and medium businesses … yet software like this could be so very useful for them.

As we pondered this situation, we found it opened up even more questions:

• Why do businesses persist for so long with cumbersome legacy systems or manual work-arounds?
• Why do businesses resort to custom software development that is many times more expensive and often less functional than off-the-shelf alternatives?
• Why do businesses settle for well-known generic software, when better, more specialised alternatives exist?

As the sun set over the river, an important realisation dawned on us – there’s a significant market failure here!   The supply exists – there are tens of thousands of software products. And the demand for business software is stronger than ever. But the supply and demand aren’t connecting as they should. For some reason, businesses defer the decision,  give up entirely, or make do with poor alternatives. 

So, we asked ourselves, why is this? 

• Is it that businesses don’t know what software is available?  Perhaps, but Google, Yahoo and various software directories do a decent job of providing a long list of available software
• Is it a case of “list shock” or information overload? Maybe the act of searching brings back so many options that businesses owners get intimidated or overwhelmed by the software selection process?
• Maybe small businesses get discouraged by technical jargon and specialist language? Could it be  that  the “Curse of Knowledge” gets in the way of vendors communicating clearly to the potential customer?
• Perhaps the problem is a lack of comparable information on software?  With only sparse information on search engines and software directories, does it take too long for businesses to trawl vendor websites  and work out what each software package does and how it compares with other software? 

The more we investigated, the more apparent it became that search engines are only a start, and the software directory model is broken (or at least flawed). The software directory mindset is “he with the biggest list wins”. But a long list of sparse and poorly comparable information is not useful for making decisions on software. 

Inspiration strikes…

Then it hit us! We honed in on a critical insight:

 Software decision makers need a short list, not a long list.

What business owners and decision makers need is a shortlist of the most relevant and promising alternatives for them to consider. Add in some apples-to-apples comparisons and detailed product information, and then you’ve got a great way to reach the right decision quickly on which software to buy.

Yarra River At Night (photo: Edwin11 on flickr.com)

And so, 18 months ago as the sun set over the Yarra river, we devised the initial concept for SoftwareShortlist as a free, online recommendation and comparison service for business software.  

In the months that followed, we challenged key assumptions, spoke with software customers and vendors, mapped out a business model, started developing the website, and got to work reviewing software. 

…and it now becomes reality

Today, our journey reaches an important milestone, as we announce the public beta launch of SoftwareShortlist.

Although the beta launch represents the culmination of nearly 18 months of hard work,  even more importantly it also represents the beginning of the next stage for SoftwareShortlist. We have big plans for the future.

Today our beta service recommends and compares timesheet software for professional service firms and livestock recordkeeping software for farmers.

In coming months, we will expand coverage to other major software categories such accounting and customer relationship management (CRM), as well as a wide range of industry-specific applications.

Let us know what you think of the beta service – with your feedback and involvement, we can make SoftwareShortlist a great resource for businesses everywhere.