One of the toughest things to do as a (relatively) small software developer is to get the word out about your product. We don’t have a multi-million dollar ad budget or a marketing department filled with people thinking up clever new ways to let people know how badly they need our software. At the same time we have some great products that people get really hooked on once they start using them.
Eric Sink, a person in our industry who I have a ton of respect for, wrote a blog post today about a near disaster with his laptop. It no longer recognized his fingerprint and he couldn’t remember the ultra secure password he’d selected for it! I read articles like this one quite often and all I can think is “We have the solution! Why doesn’t everyone know about it??”
The Solution for Eric
So just how could we have helped Eric? First, I’m going to assume that Eric either a) has more than one computer at home, maybe a desktop PC somewhere or that b) he could GET to another computer if he needed to. That said, here we go:
1. Eric enters his top-secret laptop password into an eWallet card.
2. Although Eric still needs to remember his eWallet password, because he has all his important passwords in eWallet he only has to remember that one password. Now the odds of totally forgetting become very slim!
3. Eric could even choose a handy hint in eWallet to at least push him in the right direction if he does forget his eWallet password.
4. Using SyncPro in eWallet 5.0, Eric can synchronize the wallet on his laptop with the wallet on his desktop computer. Even if he gets locked out of the laptop as he did in the article, he can still get the password from eWallet on his desktop!
5. In a worse case scenario, maybe his desktop fries out or something, he could have backed up his wallet to a CD or used SyncPro to back it up to a USB drive or remote FTP site. If he does this, by installing eWallet on any computer, he can open the wallet file that he has backed up.
Throw in some other precautions, like making sure at least one other person (wife/best friend/etc.) knows the eWallet password as well and now he never has to worry about getting 100% locked out of anything! Laptops, websites, bank accounts, with eWallet he has them all at his fingertips (pun intended. 🙂 )
The Solution for Ilium Software
This one is a little tougher. Just how does a company like Ilium Software get the word out? In this age of a million choices it seems all to easy to have your product slip off into the depths of the internet and get overlooked by customers you could really help! Apparently we’re doing something right because we’ve been around for 9 years, but we want to do even better to ensure that we’re around for at least 9 more!
So please post your two cents on this one! We’d love to hear your ideas. (And Eric, if you’re reading, drop me an email! I’d be happy to get you a free copy of eWallet!)