4 ms·
Don’t let anyone overpay you (2016)
- jakobegger 9y agoI’ve read this article before, and it’s a good reminder. Especially when you are bootstrapping and just starting out, a big contract just seems too good to be true. A company offering $1000 dollars for an extra feature, another company offering $20000 for a few weeks of custom development... It’s hard to decline offers like that, and I have accepted some offers like that. In some cases it worked out well because interests aligned. In other cases, it just turned out to be a huge time sink. I no longer accept offers like this. If companies want a feature that makes my app better, I’ll implement it anyway — my future customers will pay for it by buying more licenses. If companies want a feature that doesn’t align with my vision, then there’s no point in adding it.
- olavgg 9y agoWe (Nordic fintech company) took the other direction, because one huge client on our customer list helps a lot for further sales. It is still true when we try to enter a new market / country, selling is easier if we have a big name already present in that country on our list. The Basecamp model would never work for us, it is really really hard to get just one client, even for 50 bucks a month, and that will not cover a percentage of our expenses. It may be a US / EU difference though. The cultural differences between EU countries is a lot bigger than US states, and here you need a sales team.