The Homestead Backstory - Prelude

Every entrepreneur has a reason for being.  You can learn a lot about a company and their product/service by asking questions about where it all began.   Instead of boring you with the entire Homestead back story, from time to time I'll share snippets of our story, and why we are here.

I started Homestead years ago because I knew I was the kind of person to pour everything into my work, and I wanted to build something worthwhile.  Since I was a software guy, that meant developing products that normal people could use; ones that empowered the “little guys” to compete with the “big guys” who had all of the money and resources and technology.  I noticed that most technology companies built technology for each other and sold it back and forth, reinforcing the battlements so to speak, but not really helping people outside of the technology field.  There were exceptions of course (like Intuit, Microsoft, Yahoo) but they were outnumbered 10 to 1 by the database companies, CRM systems, sales-force automation companies, supply-chain management, yada yada yada.

So, I started Homestead to focus on people who didn’t have millions of dollars and dozens of employees to throw at technology.  They had their own energy and creativity, but couldn’t or wouldn’t want to spend it all on using technology.  Small businesses were the sweet spot of this group, and as we developed Homestead over the years they became a larger and larger part of our customer base.  Now over 75% of our new customers are small businesses or non-profit organizations, and they need our products more than ever.  That’s because larger companies are squeezing more and more competitive advantage out of their large technology investments.  Instead of the Internet “closing the gap” between small and large guys, it has widened it, and we need to work harder to close it again, or small businesses are going to keep losing out to the big brand companies as they have already in many areas (think hardware stores, local banks, small jewelers, neighborhood coffee shops).

Anyway, over the next few weeks I'll chronicle how I ended up being an entrepreneur, how we started Homestead, and how it has grown and changed over the years.  Please let me know if you have any specific questions about the Homestead "backstory" and I'll make sure to weave them into the narrative.  Thanks for reading!

 

Comments

[Sai]

I have been a Homestead user since its early days. I'd like to know what steps you took to grow from start-up to small business.

I have started several small companies/projects but I am finally at a place where 3 of them are actually running and I'd just like to hear ways other entrepreneurs have grown from start up to functioning...

Thanks