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Interviews
Published date: June 30, 2008
 © 200
8 Avangate page 1
www.avangate.com
 
Interview with Nico Westerdale
"It's all about having good relationships with your customers andyour business partners"
 
Adriana Iordan, Web Marketing Manager, Avangate
Interviews, Published date: June 30, 2008
Nico Westerdale is the president of Iconico, Inc., a company providing softwaretools and services for designers and developers including the award winningScreen Calipers. Owning an Oxford bachelor degree in fine arts, he hasmanaged to successfully combine his artistic tastes with the practice of software company management.Iconico, Inc.also runs http://www.bitsdujour.com/,the leading 24 hour discount deal website for independent software vendors. Enjoy reading some advice emerged from his ownexperience on how to run a website and how to sell more.
Adriana Iordan:
You are a graduate of Fine Arts
–
how did you end up in the softwareindustry? Please tell us a bit about yourself and about the software company you are leading.
Nico
 
Westerdale
: I've always done art and I've always been around computers, so for me thetwo go hand in hand. My father bought me my first computer in 1982, a ZX Spectrum, and youcould write BASIC applications on it, so I grew up just knowing how to code. I've always beeninterested in creating things so Fine Arts was a natural step. In my degree show I showed alightswitch that controlled a lightbulb in Holland, it was a simple use of some very complextechnology.I started Iconico, Inc.almost accidentally. I had made a few web design tools that I had on my website and decided to start selling them. People got interested and the products grew, somuch so that I could focus on the applications rather than on consulting work. We still doconsulting, but now our focus is on marketing applications and providing great customerservice.
 
 
Interviews
Published date: June 30, 2008
 © 200
8 Avangate page 2
www.avangate.com
 
Adriana Iordan:
What methods did you use to market your products? Which one would yourecommend to other software vendors?
Nico
 
Westerdale
: One thing that we do very successfully is email marketing. There's a lot of free software on Iconico.comand we ask, but don't insist on getting an email address when people download. This has built a huge list, and we send out weekly mailers to peopleadvertizing our latest developments and daily software deals. We concentrate more on retainingcustomers who are happy with what we've got by providing a great service, which I think ismuch more effective than trying to bring in new people. Our business model is based on peoplepurchasing many products over their lifetime, so we have quite a range.
Adriana Iordan:
You've recently set up the blog of Iconico, what were the reasons behind it?Would you recommend having a blog to software entrepreneurs and their businesses?
Nico
 
Westerdale
: We set up IcoBlogfor several reasons. Firstly our old newsfeed had no comments and was rather dry. We're well known in the software vendor community, so beingable to post articles about software marketing I think raises our credibility in the industry.Increasingly the products featured on Iconico.comcome from other developers, and we exclusively market their products for them, so having a proffessional blog seems key. We'veseen some good responses, and it's generated a few interesting partnership leads already.
Adriana Iordan:
How did you decide the regular prices for your products?
Nico
 
Westerdale
: A while back we did a test, and I think that's the only way. A lot of ourproducts are at the $29.50 mark, and we did used to have them lower. Increasing the pricedropped some customers, but you have to look at the bottom line. One thing we did experimentis trial periods verses feature limitation. For a lot of our products we found that we couldincrease sales by showing a limited product instead of having a full version work for a limitedtime. Figuring out how to limit it is more an art than a science though, and it's a carefulbalance.
Adriana Iordan:
You have been working for a while on user centered design for software
–
 what is your advice regarding usability issues for software selling websites?
 
 
Interviews
Published date: June 30, 2008
 © 200
8 Avangate page 3
www.avangate.com
 
Nico
 
Westerdale
: A lot of websites, and I know I do this too, fall into the trap of tunnel vision.If you work for years at your own site it's very hard to see the glaring errors in usability. Whatyou have to do is get willing testers to look at it and get feedback. If you can the easiest way isto give someone a goal, like download an application, and then just sit back and keep quiet asthey do this. I always learn a lot doing this approach.
Adriana Iordan:
You bought Bitsdujour last year
–
it was an already running business, still,not connected to your company that develops software products. How did you end up buying it?Was it worthy?
Nico
 
Westerdale
: BitsDuJourwas a natural step for us, and I think it's been a great success. It's a natural extension of the way we were marketing the Iconico applications and has given usa much bigger audience for our software. We've done a lot of work on the backend system thatruns BitsDuJour, it's a fully functioning web application. We've increased the number of dealsand havesyndicated out our deals to affiliates, which all helps give developers a biggeraudience. We still have a lot of plans for the site, it's really a huge list, so there's still a longway to go.
Adriana Iordan:
What new developments are to be expected on the Bitsdujour site this year?
Nico
 
Westerdale
: Well a lot of the work to be done has been all behind the scenes, but we'llshortly be increasing the number of deals that we run yet again, we actually have a hugewaiting list right now. We're bringing on extra staff to write reviews so setting the system up tomanage that has been a big challenge. As far as site features we've got a 'Suggest' toolspecced out, and a richer commenting system planned with user reviews. We'd like to get thesite a lot more community focused.
Adriana Iordan:
What was the biggest achievement you had so far with BDJ?
Nico
 
Westerdale
: Our affiliate store system has been the biggest challenge, and biggestsuccess so far. Website owners can set up their own daily deals store, showing our deals ontheir website. It's all seamlessly branded and very easy to set up. Any sale that's made from astore gives the owner credit. I think this is a much better model than traditional web
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