You've identified the issue around transition. It's not good enough to be simply better, it has to be great for the accountant and the transition has to be easy.
Xero figured it out - although it 2-3 years after they launched (they are now 7 years old). Their key to paid customer growth is not the UI (which is great) but that they focus on helping accountants improve the way they do business with their clients. Their marketing focuses on the accountants, and includes extensive training and so on, and they offer free practise management software. It changes the relationship accountants have with their clients and creates evangelists.
To help in the US Xero has just launched a Quickbooks --> Xero tool.
Of not for HN is the comprehensive and rapidly growing ecosystem of add-ons and complementary cloud products, many out of NZ, but many (more?) from offshore. It's a very fast growing area with a lot of opportunity.
Comments
You've identified the issue around transition. It's not good enough to be simply better, it has to be great for the accountant and the transition has to be easy.
Xero figured it out - although it 2-3 years after they launched (they are now 7 years old). Their key to paid customer growth is not the UI (which is great) but that they focus on helping accountants improve the way they do business with their clients. Their marketing focuses on the accountants, and includes extensive training and so on, and they offer free practise management software. It changes the relationship accountants have with their clients and creates evangelists.
To help in the US Xero has just launched a Quickbooks --> Xero tool.
Of not for HN is the comprehensive and rapidly growing ecosystem of add-ons and complementary cloud products, many out of NZ, but many (more?) from offshore. It's a very fast growing area with a lot of opportunity.
More info on the conversion tool:
http://www.xero.com/au/convert
http://help.xero.com/Help/resources/QBXeroConversion.htm