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More accurately, you don't have to pay a bunch of sales people. Sales is the dominant expense of SaaS companies (many SaaS companies in fact have more salespeop

More accurately, you don't have to pay a bunch of sales people. Sales is the dominant expense of SaaS companies (many SaaS companies in fact have more salespeople than engineers, especially when you consider that most "support" people are in fact sales). Baasil looks interest. I've also never heard of it, but I have heard of your competitors—thanks to the marketing/sales which their higher fees pay for. If you're actually planning to grow a business, you need to cover acquisition costs in your pricing. For many businesses, CAC is by far the biggest expense.

jondubois 11y ago
Yes, true. I do think that generic B2B software services like this should be treated more like commodities. Maybe this will happen as more competitors spawn up. In my view, paying to advertise such a service is equivalent to a farmer paying to advertise his wheat.
- morgante 11y ago
  In practice, that's basically what AWS is. They offer things at prices much lower than other B2B software, but don't have the niceties and sales efforts around each individual line item.
- jkarneges 11y ago
  A farmer may not have to advertise his wheat to consumers, but he still needs the stores to know about him if he's going to sell anything. I'm not a farmer, but I would imagine this would mean advertising or doing direct sales with stores. Also there is such a thing as commodity advertising. :) Nobody really wants their product to be a commodity though, as that means low margins. Fortunately, software products tend to be complex enough that even if there are generic product categories (e.g. "email service provider"), there are still ways to stand out. Even the "pub/sub service" market has quite some variety.
jtmcmc 11y ago
Er just as a point I would say that most often support people, especially in b2b companies, are not sales. In fact there is often an intentional, clear distinction. I've worked support at several companies now and while I've definitely been a resource for sales I was never actually sales driven in any fashion.

jondubois 11y ago

Yes, true. I do think that generic B2B software services like this should be treated more like commodities. Maybe this will happen as more competitors spawn up. In my view, paying to advertise such a service is equivalent to a farmer paying to advertise his wheat.

morgante 11y ago
In practice, that's basically what AWS is. They offer things at prices much lower than other B2B software, but don't have the niceties and sales efforts around each individual line item.
jkarneges 11y ago
A farmer may not have to advertise his wheat to consumers, but he still needs the stores to know about him if he's going to sell anything. I'm not a farmer, but I would imagine this would mean advertising or doing direct sales with stores. Also there is such a thing as commodity advertising. :) Nobody really wants their product to be a commodity though, as that means low margins. Fortunately, software products tend to be complex enough that even if there are generic product categories (e.g. "email service provider"), there are still ways to stand out. Even the "pub/sub service" market has quite some variety.

jtmcmc 11y ago

Er just as a point I would say that most often support people, especially in b2b companies, are not sales. In fact there is often an intentional, clear distinction. I've worked support at several companies now and while I've definitely been a resource for sales I was never actually sales driven in any fashion.