Software Marketing Advisor Blog

It goes without saying that when it comes to cloud, Amazon’s (s AWS) chief technology officer Werner Vogels has a pulse of the planet. Thanks to the boom in demand for Amazon Web Services and his endless evangelizing of its cloud services in furthest corners of the world, Vogels is intimately aware of how people are using cloud and how it is impacting businesses and people.

A few years ago, during the course of an interview, he told us the cloud with its pay-as-you-go led to more tinkering and that was good for entrepreneurial activity. That prognosis has come true and Amazon is now at the heart of the startup revolution. So a few weeks ago when I asked him where will cloud and cloud services will have the biggest impact, Vogels said one should look overseas, especially in countries that have little or no technology infrastructure.

Going global

There’s an entrepreneurial tendency to try and be all things to all people. The thinking goes that if some pain or need in the market has been identified, why not service it since we’re trying to build a company. Generally, I like to think about two common strategies and often pick the one that’s simpler:

• Boil the Ocean – The idea is to tackle the largest, most general problem in a market and build a solution that will be most ubiquitous (think Dropbox for file sychronizing or where Mailchimp is heading with email marketing).
• Set Sail and Wait for the Tide to Rise – Pick a more narrowly defined segment of the market, typically the small-to-medium sized business area since they can adopt a solution faster, and then as the market grows, slowly move up market (think Salesforce.com for customer relationship management).

Almost always, entrepreneurs go after the boil the…