How SoftOrbits’ unique brand positioning secured its niche in the photo industry

SoftOrbits is an image data processing software development company that was founded by Eugene Ustinenkov in 2006. Initially a tiny startup, nowadays SoftOrbits is a company recognized by industry leaders like CNET, OISV, and Softonic, and it boasts over a million yearly downloads and over 300,000 users.

What made SoftOrbits so successful in a highly competitive niche cannot be simplified to just high-quality products and responsive customer support service. Ever since its inception, knew it needed to offer a unique approach to software in order to compete with industry giants. This is why the team chose to hyper-focus on developing small-scale single-feature user-friendly utilities targeting amateur photographers, content creators, and marketing teams.

“When you are a small company, there is no reason to compete with the titans — you aren’t likely to win. Instead, you can do something they’ve missed. A lot of the time, millions of users would love a simple tool that no one has created, and yet it goes unnoticed for years. For instance, SoftOrbits was the first company to develop a batch watermark removal tool — a simple and convenient solution that could be built even earlier if the giants weren’t so busy with their bulky comprehensive programs,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits and AlarmFront.

As Ustinenkov explains, this unique strategy has earned SoftOrbits’ popularity over several years. To put it simply, if you were looking for a simple automated tool to deal with an otherwise time-consuming and annoying issue, you would inevitably stumble upon their solutions, because they were advertised for their specific functionality rather than universality.

“Think of it this way: if you needed to remove the background from a photo, would you download a giant program that is capable of a hundred different things as long as you learn how to use it correctly, or would you rather download a small utility that will automatically do exactly what you need? From the client’s perspective, the answer is obvious — and that is something lots of businesses don’t fully understand. They focus on the wrong competition — it isn’t about being the next big thing, it’s about giving your audience exactly what it needs,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits with more than 10 years of software development expertise.

As SoftOrbits approaches its 20th anniversary, the company plans to undergo some fundamental changes to increase convenience for its customers. The first significant aspect of this is the introduction of new AI functionalities: the team has already implemented them into seven of its utilities and is considering expanding on them further in the future.

“AI is phenomenal when it comes to creating a smooth user experience and increasing accessibility, so it fits our design philosophy perfectly. Right now we are exploring its capabilities and looking for new ways to use the technology in our products as well as create new solutions featuring AI,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits, Candidate of Technical Sciences.

Not only that, but the team plans to change its distribution model to SaaS to remove hardware requirements and make the team’s products available 24/7. Right now, SoftOrbits provides some SaaS functionalities to its corporate clients, but the goal is to enable full access to its products for everyone.

“We have been considering this for a long time, but now we are finally starting the process. Although it is going to take some time and resources, we are excited about the beginning of a new era for our company. We believe that SaaS is the most viable strategy for any business with similar core values and products, and we are going to prove it by reaching new heights,” says Hannes Jansen, writer and editor at SoftOrbits.

Want to connect with SoftOrbits?

Whether you’re a client interested in SoftOrbits’ products or a business owner willing to partner with the team, you can reach out at [email protected] or visit softorbits.net.