Paul Silver

Interview with Trevor Barnes about building a Software as a Service for recruiters

Paul Silver, director of Silver Web Services, recently interviewed Trevor Barnes about building his recruitment software ApplicantExtra - http://www.applicantextra.com - available as a cloud based Software as a Service.

Some key points for people thinking of building their own service:

For customers, the software as a service model is an advantage as it offers instant upgrades and fixes, automatic backups, universal access from anywhere no matter whether you use PC, Mac or tablet/phone, and low upfront costs.

Although starting out as a developer, Trevor had to transition in to being a manager and sales lead, replacing his previous role with other programmers. This allowed them to build a larger, more complicated product than he was able to on his own.

He found efficiencies in running as a distributed company, keeping in constant contact with his full time staff and contractors via Skype and other free communication software. However, running a distributed team, especially when some staff may have English as a second language, can be tough.

By talking to customers and potential customers, he was able to discover extra facilities to add to the service to make them stand out compared to competitors.

Get good at importing data from clients previous suppliers, and offer an easy way to export their own data as it builds confidence that you are not trying to lock them in to your service.

Customer referrals can really help you grow your business, but you also need to make sure your customers are kept very happy.

Being accessible by phone and email can beat pushing your customers to login to their own 'portal'.

Don't dwell on the past, keep looking to how you're going to improve next.

You can read the whole interview here: http://www.paulsilver.co.uk/blog/2013/02/interview-with-trevor-barnes/