Question for those who build their own ISV solutions for Business Central

Business Central/NAV
1

Hi everyone,

I have a question for those who build their own ISV solutions for Business Central and sell them through AppSource.

How do you promote your apps and find customers?

We are a small ISV company working with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Extensions-Lab). We have published our solutions, but so far the results have been quite modest, and honestly, we are trying to understand what we might be missing.

Microsoft keeps saying at every Directions conference that the number of Business Central customers is growing and has already reached around 55,000. That sounds great, but from our perspective the big question is: where are these customers, and how do you actually reach them?

If you are doing something similar, I would be very grateful if you could share your experience. How do you generate leads? Do customers find you through AppSource, or do you mostly rely on partners, direct sales, marketing campaigns, content, LinkedIn, events, or something else?

Any practical advice, lessons learned, or even mistakes to avoid would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi @Oleg_Lobakov,

We’re in a similar situation. We’ve published a few applications on AppSource as well, and the impact so far has been quite limited.

Coming from a technical background, I’m not really an expert in sales or marketing, so it’s hard for me to assess what we might be doing right — or wrong — in this area.

I’d really appreciate hearing from someone who has been successful, and learning what approach worked for them.

3

I also think many ISVs are in a similar situation: they’ve invested in development, and many have interesting, proven solutions, but it’s unclear what comes next. Yes, AppSource is an interesting distribution model for solutions, but how do you actually benefit from it? When will it start working at full capacity? We are separated from customers by partners.

4

Hey Friend,

I can understand the expectations and the frustration that come along with it. But sometimes we need to wait for the right opportunity. It may take significant time, and that’s where patience really comes into the picture.

Regarding AppSource, as you already know, it has become much more crowded with apps now. Because of that, getting recognition is not easy anymore. So, apart from just publishing the app on AppSource, one also needs to put effort into promoting it. Some marketing and visibility activities will definitely help.

5

Thanks for your support. We’ll figure something out. I’m not sure what yet, but we’ll come up with something :upside_down_face: