That's where the real trouble comes in. To break into the market, eTapestry had to create a focused marketing and sales effort. As the company developed the product they reached out to some friends in the region. The Central Indiana Foundation networked eTapestry to local nonprofits and helped them land 15 alpha customers. They absolutely love it once they use it.
Most customers are up in running in two to three months, even if there's a nasty conversion of data.
Still, eTapestry poses a challenge for nonprofit decision-makers. Again, Love and his team know the market well and have insider information when it comes to developing for their client base. We provide the greatest support in the market and that gives us a significant differentiator. But it's a long way from 800 customers to 100,000 so the company is spending what it estimates as double its average competitor on marketing and promotion. The application, the tech support and the implementation crew.