Great post by Rick about competitive advantage among other things. I agree with this 100%. I've found that fast and great service are the easiest (in a certain sense) way to outperform your competitors. This is especially true of MicroISV's and small ISV"s. It sounds counter intuitive, but it's not really.

As you get bigger the service gets farther away from YOU and generally service gets worse. When you're small it's easier to provide great service and control the service environment. That's something Rick has done a great job with as his company has grown and it relates directly to what he mentions about controlling growth.

My #1 advice to new ISV's when they email in is to provide great (and fast) service.