I did the same as thorax. Often if you say you are considering becoming a customer, they will give a one to two week free trial. You learn a lot from salespeop

I did the same as thorax. Often if you say you are considering becoming a customer, they will give a one to two week free trial. You learn a lot from salespeople and their sales consultants. You may enter this trial thinking that you will compete, but you may also learn a lot -- like info to feed into your product strategy -- in my case realizing that I'd like to outsource some components of what I'm doing and focus on what is original/unique about my idea.