Thursday, August 31, 2006

Fun Times with JotSpot's Solution Partner Program


I'm typically a heads-down, OCDish kind of guy, particularly when it comes to work.  Not prone to too much distraction, I often get lost in what I'm doing.

That said, the last handful of months have actually been more heads-down than most.  I've resorted to shutting off my aggregator, not going out much if it doesn't involve my family or close friends, and staying up way too late way too often.

So what's up you ask? 

I've actually been working heads down with a bunch of awesome folks conceiving an growing the JotSpot Solution Partner program, and man has it been fun.  It's been a deep dive in collaboration on all levels, and has me firing on just about every cylinder work-wise.  Here's what I mean.

Having Your Cake and Eating it Too

The fun starts with the basic mission of the program: 
Partner with 3rd party developers to create custom collaborative software that 1) fits the customer like a glove and 2) can proceed from concept to launch in handfuls of weeks.
The basic actors in this movie are:
  1. JotSpot, an amazing on-demand app platform based on the power of wiki.  Jot lets you have your cake (a wiki) and eat it too (extensible dev platform).
  2. JotSpot customers of every variety.  They bring their unique vision along w/enough need to justify paying honest dollars to make it happen.
  3. A growing set of JotSpot partners who enjoy the challenge and profit of rapidly turning these customer visions into production software.
Concentric Circles of Entrepreneurism

At my ripe old age I've figured out a few basic ingredients that get me going at work.  I'm basically equal parts technology, business, and people, all wrapped up in a tendency to over commit and an unreasonable attraction to challenge.

What's so cool about growing this program is that all three are rocking and rolling full tilt.  Everywhere I turn there are little cycles of entrepreneurism happening, and as the program grows they're reproducing and enveoping each other at a rapid rate.
  • Tech: Jot's kick-booty technology feeds the inner geek by letting us create custom collaborative products from top to bottom, no IT plumbing required.
  • Business: Every new partner and customer discussion is grounded in the bottom line.  We're conceiving, justifying, building, and launching a new product within a 3-way partnerships (Jot + partner + customer), multiple times a month.
  • People: It's awesome to work with so many different teams at such a fast pace.  We go from initial meeting to deployed solution in handfuls of weeks.  This dictates a fluid and high communication approach, which of course allows us to eat our own dog food coordinating each project in Jot (more feeding of the geek factor). 
So I have to say that overall, the last 6 months have provided a major dose of inspiration, and I feel it growing.  Touchy-feely sentiment aside, success is happening for all involved, which bodes well for the future.  I really look forward to letting more and more folks in on our little secret.