How to disrupt enterprise software

*This article is meant for developers who love programming and entrepreneurship.

Tons of companies now rely on some type of enterprise software product or software based service. Few of those companies actually have software that is of high quality, with good usability. Those companies that produce the sub quality software also have tons of inefficiencies throughout the company as compared to developer oriented companies. They also tend to put a heavy emphasis on sales and professional services, with little to no emphasis on development.

Often these companies lock in their customers, simply because no other solutions exist in the market place, that satisfy their customers business requirements. The business requirements are sometimes very domain specific and tend not to be general knowledge.

You can sometimes identify these companies through their homepage. Their homepage tends to look very outdated and/or incoherent. They will tend to have tons of 'white papers' with little emphasis on what the product does. Their site always tries to point you to contacting sales or scheduling a demo. Sometimes, even the above might be false indications of companies that could be disrupted due to them having poor software solutions. So take some time and due diligence through social media, google, to research if they have a good or inefficient software solution. Don't be afraid to contact their customers to ask them.

If you identified a enterprise company that has poor software and the customers are locked in and the company is making a profit. Try to learn as much as you can about what problems the companies software tries to address and the problems they are solving.

Steps to disrupt

1.) Make sure you have a solid technical foundation. In your past experience, you should have coded at least one decent app end to end, preferably your dream project or business. You know all the bits and pieces that are required to code a full solution. You are up to date with the latest development treads, tools, and best practices.

2.) You will need to dive in and get a job in professional services or sales at company or one of their competitors. You need to come up to speed as fast as possible with what their current solution does fully, and you need to engage customers. You will quickly assimilate what problems the software is trying solve on a high level. Don't engage with their software on a low level; their solution could be utter crap and spaghetti code, so don't waste your time.

It should be very easy to get a job in professional services for a entrepreneur minded developer. If you need to, you can work on your communication skills.

3.) Once you know on a high level what problems their software addresses and have a good idea of their customers expectations and what they feel could be better. Take some time, develop a application and contact their customers, saying you have a better solution.

You might need to quit the company before you start developing your application. Pay attention to the NDA you signed. Again don't look at any of their source code.

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