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Small Business Web – A Brilliant API Collaboration

September 11th, 2009 by Erin Posted in Small Business | No Comments »

Small Business Web.

Have you heard about it?

It’s a network that encourages small business software companies to share their products, or APIs, with one another and bring those applications to the next level, in turn making life easier for those who buy them – small businesses.

No doubt this is a fundamentally different way of doing business. Companies that compete are, in a sense, locking hands and joining forces in an effort to better serve their customers.

Here’s one example from a recent BusinessWeekarticle:

BatchBlue Software – a company that makes online CRM tools for small business – recently had trouble with business development. CEO Pamela O’Hara spent a year trying to partner with another company to let her customers easily email the lists of contacts they organized in her software . At her wits end, O’Hara finally decided to have her team write its own code to sync its software with MailChimp, an Atlanta-based email marketing compnay. Using MailChimp’s API, BatchBlue was finally able to give its clients the email function they needed.

Small Business Web contends that not every firm in the network is integrated. Some even compete in the same market. Yet ALL are committed to publishing and sharing their APIs – which keeps their customers from locking into any one platform.

Referrals with Small Business Web are also through the roof.

BatchBlue, in particular, reports that 40% of the firm’s business comes from referrals by partners within the network. BatchBlue also says it no longer has to pay for advertising, relying soley on word of mouth.

Talk about leveraging the power of small businesses. A brilliant idea indeed!

As they say… there’s strength in numbers.

Look out Microsoft.

 Tags: api, crm tools, small business software, small business web