A market evaluation expert and an incubator advisor at Veeva systems, Chris has built a career around finding what makes successful B2B software tick.  He began at Adobe, and was one of the early advocates championing Customer Experience as core to B2B product strategy – long before it became the buzzword it is today.

Here’s what he had to say:

1. If you creatively solve a problem internally, look to see if it could help others.

You’d never have known it, but during the 90’s at Adobe, much of our non-core data         think helpdesk inquiries, internal communications, etc. — was cobbled together with little more than manual excel sheets and chewing gum.We knew we had a problem, and there wasn’t much out there to help us. Except for a  little Swiss company called Day Software.  Our CIO at the time, Geri Martin-Flickinger, was the one who alerted our enterprise document product team.  She pointed out that they were head-and-shoulders above the competition and that they might be a good fit for our product suite.  It was a classic case of the Remington Shaver guy: “I loved it so much, I bought the company!”

We had a hunch other companies might have similar problems, and it turns out we were right  — nearly every other company we talked to said, “Oh, you have no idea!”, when we asked if their non-core data management was a mess.  Turns out our dirty little secret was everyone else’s dirty little secret too.

The product we acquired from Day Software became the cornerstone of Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe’s enterprise content management product suite. And it all started with scratching our own itch. If you’ve found an awesome way to solve an internal issue, see if there’s opportunity to turn it into something more.

2. Buying enterprise software is a highly emotional decision.

 Here’s the thing: consumer purchases, as emotionally charged as they may be, don’t usually have a huge impact on your life if you buy the wrong thing.

It’s a whole different story with enterprise software, though — making a big software purchase could make or break someone’s career.

That’s why brand trust is so critical with B2B software. If the VP of sales is going to take a bet on your software, it’s not a decision he or she will make lightly. People need to know that the company they’re buying from will stand behind their product. So ask, “Does that trust come across to our potential customers?”

Actually, this phenomenon played a huge part in the success of Day Software, mentioned earlier. While their product was fantastic before Adobe acquired them, they hadn’t yet built the market trust needed to win a critical mass of customers. Once they were paired with the reliability of the Adobe brand, though, things really took off.

3. New B2B products need to solve the problems that keep VPs up at night.

I had the amazing opportunity to work with Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm. One thing he said always stuck with me: “When evaluating if you have a good B2B product, ask yourself this: is there a VP out there saying, ‘If people actually knew how we were doing this, I’d get fired’?”

I love that line, because it’s a great criterion — if you focus on the problems VPs care about (after all, they make the purchase decisions), you’ll find it almost always is a, “gotta fix this fast” problem that has the potential to noticeably affect their bottom line.

Turns out, I’d later learn this lesson the hard way. After Adobe, I worked with a mobile CRM company called Selligy.  We made a fantastic product that was miles ahead of current practices. But it didn’t focus on a problem that the higher-ups at companies were dying to solve.

Eventually, we died the same death as the letter opener: Even though those old-fashioned letter openers work wonderfully, most people will settle for an even more convenient tool: their fingers.

The insights don’t get much more helpful than that! Thanks, Chris. I had to ask him one more question, though: Captain Kirk or Captain Picard?

Chris pondered for a second, but his answer was clear. “I’d have to go with Picard — I mean, there’s no way Kirk could arbitrate the Klingon succession.”