What are the challenges you face managing a B2B software company?

Thanks for the inquiry. As an early stage company navigating new territory to advance commerce and knowledge sharing for online communities, we face lots of challenges and a major one is finding the right terminology to describe our business approach. People often characterize our business as a “white-label service” (can be branded by other organizations), or that is “SaaS” (Software as a Service) and as you indicate, “B2B” (Business-to-business) in contrast to “B2C” (Business-to-Consumer). Since we currently work with many associations and professional societies, they are keen to learn that Brainsy offers them "non-dues revenue” opportunities and also that we create "member value.”

Despite the many labels and descriptions that are commonly used, I find them all to be somewhat limiting. Rather than call ourselves a “B2B” company, I think Business-to-Ecosystem or “B2ECO” may be more appropriate because the “ECO” represents one big “B” partner (our association client), lots of small “b” (their members), and often lots of “C” (the customers of their members). So in essence, we’re working to support a whole ecosystem of entities that interact with us -- but mainly each other – and THAT can be a challenge.