The July 2007 issue of Inc. Magazine features four companies under a cover story entitled "How to Launch a Cool, Profitable, Worth-All-The-Risk, Kick-Ass Start-Up (And Live To Brag About It)", and one of them, lo and behold, is a printer software company! Regular blog readers will recognize the company that I've featured here several times this year, GreenPrint, and compliments to Inc writer Stephanie Clifford for a very informative piece for the magazine.
Like the other three companies featured in the story, Inc. also seeks out a critique from a legendary entrepreneur, and in GreenPrint's case its from another printer-industry-related "celebrity", Quark co-founder Tim Gill. GreenPrint CEO Hayden Hamilton points out some of Gill's fast-and-loose analysis in his blog entry about the critique, and the section could be sub-titled "How These Same Start-Ups Need to Withstand Criticism from Ill-informed Celebrity Commentators". Hamilton offers data to refute some of Gill's misperceptions, and from my experience with the GreenPrint software, the customer benefits are as much about control and convenience, which Gill misses entirely (and something his background with Quark should come naturally to him). On the other hand, the QuarkXPress story is one of the great ones in our industry so he certainly knows something!
Like the other three companies featured in the story, Inc. also seeks out a critique from a legendary entrepreneur, and in GreenPrint's case its from another printer-industry-related "celebrity", Quark co-founder Tim Gill. GreenPrint CEO Hayden Hamilton points out some of Gill's fast-and-loose analysis in his blog entry about the critique, and the section could be sub-titled "How These Same Start-Ups Need to Withstand Criticism from Ill-informed Celebrity Commentators". Hamilton offers data to refute some of Gill's misperceptions, and from my experience with the GreenPrint software, the customer benefits are as much about control and convenience, which Gill misses entirely (and something his background with Quark should come naturally to him). On the other hand, the QuarkXPress story is one of the great ones in our industry so he certainly knows something!
Comments
Here's what I found -- an update from the author about how she'd do it differently next time! I am impressed with both Sphere and Ms Clifford!
http://blog.inc.com/archives/2007/06/26/greenprint_strikes_back.html?referer=sphere_related_content