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Comment by Daniel Leuck on July 19, 2011 at 9:46am

You just have to concede that, for most businesses, if you are based in Hawaii and selling to customers on the mainland or in Asia you will be traveling frequently. I was in Tokyo two weeks ago and I'll be in NY next month. That's just the nature of our business.

Of course, if you have a self provisioning SaaS app like Google Apps or Ning, this isn't the case. You just build it and market it on the web. I say "just" with my tongue firmly in my cheek because its a lot harder to build a robust self provisioning SaaS platform than it is a typical web app or packaged software. The demands on everything from the architecture to the UX design are much higher.

Comment by Ian Gilyeat on July 19, 2011 at 6:06am

Wow... yea, this is from a while ago...:)  but your points are valid.  I understand the first on competing with $100 per month but isn't that the same for everyone that lives in a high wage society - mainland included?  On the travel cost difference you're absolutely right.  We just landed a new client in Denver and part of the reason we won - against a local outfit - was because I hopped a plane and met with the board face-to-face.  Received the invite on Thursday, bought the ticket Friday and were in meetings with them on Monday.  F2F does make a difference - and even though I'm a huge fan of insides tele-sales professionals, I recognize F2F can be the defining difference in winning certain clients.

Comment by Daniel Leuck on June 3, 2010 at 11:05am

Francis A. Covington: Yes, I was just referring to their infrastructure.

All the Hawaii based and partially Hawaii based SaaS companies I listed cater to a global audience, so they wouldn't want their infrastructure in Hawaii. The majority of SaaS startups with which I'm familiar, in Hawaii and the mainland, build on top of Amazon's EC2. GAE is starting to win some converts (its much younger than EC2.) These are platforms for web apps. They aren't focused on IT infrastructure.

Comment by Francis A. Covington on June 3, 2010 at 9:13am

Yes,
I was just referring to their infrastructure.

Comment by Daniel Leuck on June 3, 2010 at 9:07am

Francis A. Covington: I looked at their website... but here again, (going back to the original question) they are California Based.

Are you referring to Qtask? Their headquarters is in Burbank but their cofounder and CTO is on Maui. I just learned of them recently.

Comment by Francis A. Covington on June 3, 2010 at 8:43am

Ian, I not going to put the sales pitch on the blog, but if you want to talk one on one on enterprise offerings, please drop me a note. Thanks

Comment by Francis A. Covington on June 3, 2010 at 8:37am

I looked at their website... but here again, (going back to the original question) they are California Based.

Comment by Ian Gilyeat on June 3, 2010 at 8:36am

I like the simplicity of a straight-line utility model as well although at some point it can become cost prohibitive on the upper end when compared with premise solutions. This is what I see among several of the SaaS providers we work with. They compare and compete very well until they hit enterprise class customers.

Comment by Daniel Leuck on June 3, 2010 at 8:12am

Another SaaS company with Hawaii connections for the list: Qtask.

Comment by Brian on June 3, 2010 at 7:06am

I'm not very familiar with GAE, but Amazon's business model is pretty much straight-up utility. So yes.. the more you use the more you pay. That seems quite logical to me though and frankly I want them to be that way. Otherwise as all their customers ramp up usage they will make less and less profit which is a disincentive for them to maintain service quality, etc..

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