When Looking for Answers...Follow the Money

"Follow the money" is a common way experts rationalize human behaviors in economics, politics, crime and many other areas. This undeniable truth becomes even more relevant in an economic environment characterized by gloom and pessimism, such as the one we are currently experiencing.

It is with this in mind that we are proud to announce that in the midst of one of the most difficult economic scenarios in history, JackBe received $5 Million in additional funding from its existing investors to expand our sales and marketing efforts.

I have been asked by many people “how did you manage this in today’s economic environment?” Well, let's follow the money to figure out the reasons why…

The first clue in the money trail is based on the great promise Mashups have for making business cheaper and faster. With budgets tighter than ever, many organizations are turning to Mashups as a way to do more while spending less. Anthony Bradley at Gartner stated it very well in a recent blog post:

“…mashups may be one of the areas of innovation that continues to do well through the economic downturn. This makes sense as organizations looking to save dollars may look to mashups for a quicker and cheaper approach to integration and new app development.”

The second clue in the money trail is that JackBe has passed many notable milestones in 2008 as well: a ‘Best Enterprise Mashup Platform’ award, a major product release, a community for Mashup Developers, a free Developer Edition, and what we’d like to think is some industry-advancing thought leadership with some great partners.

However, nothing is more important than having new customers and delivering real benefits to them. Receiving the trust of enterprises who use the software we have created is the most vital clue in the proverbial “money trail”. It certainly confirms that there is much value and promise in what we do.

In my opinion, the money trail points out two notable facts. First, there is some tangible value to Mashup technology in the enterprise. But equally important, our customers are buying our software because of the fundamental shift in general enterprise technology from large-scale, monolithic efforts (ERP, CRM, custom applications and the like) to agile, dynamic projects that allow enterprises to take advantage of their existing infrastructure. And by doing so these organizations save time and money while achieving better operational business results.

I think that noted business author (and Member of the Mashup Tribe) Dan Woods summed it up nicely at a recent Mashup Camp:

"Mashups aren't doing things that are already being done by IT; they're doing things that users wanted but IT never got to. You won't get a new CRM system out of a mashup, but you will get a better CRM system that does things IT didn't have time to develop or know were needed."

As Dan noted in a column in Forbes, Mashups are being used by competitive enterprises to rapidly make improvement on their existing software ecosystems to add business value, without the lengthy and expensive projects of the past.

I think that by following the money trail of both investors and customers you can reach a simple but powerful conclusion: Mashups are good for business and they become even more valuable in a scenario where cost reductions and increased efficiencies are paramount.

You can bet that the trust from our investors, our customer's confidence, and the unique opportunity to make enterprises more efficient are the reasons that we will be working hard in 2009.

Mash on.