About 20 years ago I developed a software product for large mainframe computers. Remember that there were no PC's in those days; mainframes were biggest computers normally used by businesses and those that had them typically had their own staff of programmers. My software was a tool designed specifically for those programmers and helped them with testing and debugging. Naturally, I had to clearly convey functionality of my product to my market (corporate programming groups), but it was complicated to describe. "...a tool that allows your programmers to manipulate data files and make quick changes and fixes for testing, debugging, and troubleshooting..." What was that again?

I remember shopping for a laser printer about 10 years ago. Living in a rural area, mail order is way to go for me and I combed ads in back of PC Magazine. Many of them didn't even show a price; it just said "Call" and I did. When I got price I wrote it down, then discovered that terms varied. Considerations such as shipping costs, credit card surcharges, sales tax if purchased within California, etc. all affected my bottom line cost, and whenever I discovered a new consideration, I had to re-dial companies I already spoke to in order to get their policy on matter. I figure I spent at least 10 hours doing research. I also figure that I saved about $50. Pretty good, huh? NOPE! I probably could have made a heckava lot more than that had I invested those 10 hours in my business!