what’s working
“The Small Business App Store helps
our members quickly find reliable,
affordable and appropriate business
solutions that will allow them to
grow and create new jobs.”
— Kris Johnson, vice president of operations, AWB
Some of his earliest customers were European banks. They were drawn to the idea of
buying an out-of-the-box branded app store to put on their websites to help their customers
make better use of technology.
As SaaS Markets looked for ways to grow in the U.S., it began looking to partner with
chambers of commerce as a way to reach businesses.
AWB is the first state chamber of commerce to give its members access to the SaaS
Market app store. “Our goal as the state chamber is to help our members be successful
and contribute to a healthy economy,” said Kris Johnson, AWB’s vice president of operations. “The Small Business App Store helps our member quickly find reliable, affordable
and appropriate business solutions that will allow them to grow and create new jobs.”
stocking the store
AWB App Store:
appstore.awb.org
SaaS Markets:
www.saasmarkets.com
So what’s in the AWB App Store? Hundreds of programs divided into categories such as
Admin and Office Tools, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and Communications, Security
and Website and eCommerce.
There are apps to help with billing and invoicing, expense reporting, time tracking,
project management, commission management, shopping carts, ticket sales, web security
and much, much more.
All of the apps have been vetted by SaaS Markets, which uses a process so rigorous that
just 12 percent of the products it looks at end up being accepted.
Some well-known apps are missing from the store — not necessarily because they aren’t
effective, but because they are either too expensive or they require a high level of digital savvy
to make them work properly. You won’t find much from Microsoft or Google, for example.
Many of the apps are titles that business owners wouldn’t find on their own, even if they
were inclined to search them out. That’s because the companies that make them often times
don’t pay for the online advertising that’s required to make them show up in a Google search.
leveling the field
SaaS Markets has targeted small- and medium-sized business, Roberts said, because they
are the bedrock of the economy.
His goal is to put tools into the hands of small business owners so they don’t have to
spend thousands of dollars on servers or customized software.
“You’re now able to utilize tools that once belonged only to enterprise companies, large
companies with deep pockets,” Roberts said.
Small companies look big.
“They need to appear bigger, they need to be capable of the same handling the same kind
of sale,” he said. “These tools help them to do that.”
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