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Thanks for sharing this. For me, this was the biggest takeaway. > In every case, a viable option for the customer will be to “do nothing”. They don’t have to b

Thanks for sharing this. For me, this was the biggest takeaway. > In every case, a viable option for the customer will be to “do nothing”. They don’t have to buy your product, or any product for that matter. The best way to prove the case for your product is with your metrics. Doing nothing should be a very expensive option. That fundamentally speaks for having a problem to solve and not a solution looking for a problem. I think this key distinction is a good sieve to filter out potential ideas especially if you're in the business of SaaS.

bob33212 6y ago
In enterprises there are plenty of problems that are just not important enough to spend money on. For example there may be a yearly reporting process which takes 30 days for an accountant to complete, which could be automated by a SaaS product. That is less than $20k a year of cost. The CFO may be perfectly fine with the manual process. Just because someone could save money with your product doesn't mean that they will want to.
- yoshyosh 6y ago
  Assuming I'm paying that accountant less than 20k for those 30 days, it doesn't make much business sense to switch when presented that way. Businesses don't always optimized for saved time even if it's obvious, it has to make business sense on an ROI level aka that solution only costs me 2k rather than the $20K I spent on the accountant. Also like you said they just may have bigger fish to fry since 20k is nothing compared to their other issues
  - goatherders 6y ago
    That's not how you sell that product. You sell it by saying that once a decade the accountant is going to make an error that costs your company a billion dollars during due diligence before an IPO or sale. In the enterprise 20k isnt cost savings at all and, agreed, not going to result in many sales.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > it has to make business sense on an ROI level aka that solution only costs me 2k rather than the $20K I spent on the accountant With these numbers, I’d stick with the accountant. They work. They are flexible. They can be easily replaced. With a SaaS product, I have to worry about whether their product works, if they’ll be around in a few years, how they’ll safeguard my data, if they’ll try to lock me in and increase prices, and if they can adapt to my changing needs. This decision process, alone, could easily nullify the projected savings.
- kinj28 6y ago
  IMHO a decision maker (say a CFO) will 1) choose battle to pick depending on his/her burning priorities 2) make investments where he/she can maximise ROI Also keep in mind she/ he has limited Bandwidth for new initiatives.
- wazoox 6y ago
  Actually money-saving devices sell poorly if you can't provide hard numbers. If the product/service you're selling has an obvious benefit / fast ROI (for instance your customer can rent/sell it for more to their own customers, or save huge amounts on their business process), it's pretty easy. However if your product / service is just "nice to have" and "can save money / help sales on the long term" it's almost impossible to close the deal unless your product /service is so cheap as to not be a problem at all.
netcan 6y ago
eh... In enterprise/saas... you eventually always have a solution looking for a problem. You have a salesforce or whatnot, and you have to sell it.

bob33212 6y ago

In enterprises there are plenty of problems that are just not important enough to spend money on. For example there may be a yearly reporting process which takes 30 days for an accountant to complete, which could be automated by a SaaS product. That is less than $20k a year of cost. The CFO may be perfectly fine with the manual process. Just because someone could save money with your product doesn't mean that they will want to.

yoshyosh 6y ago
Assuming I'm paying that accountant less than 20k for those 30 days, it doesn't make much business sense to switch when presented that way. Businesses don't always optimized for saved time even if it's obvious, it has to make business sense on an ROI level aka that solution only costs me 2k rather than the $20K I spent on the accountant. Also like you said they just may have bigger fish to fry since 20k is nothing compared to their other issues
- goatherders 6y ago
  That's not how you sell that product. You sell it by saying that once a decade the accountant is going to make an error that costs your company a billion dollars during due diligence before an IPO or sale. In the enterprise 20k isnt cost savings at all and, agreed, not going to result in many sales.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > it has to make business sense on an ROI level aka that solution only costs me 2k rather than the $20K I spent on the accountant With these numbers, I’d stick with the accountant. They work. They are flexible. They can be easily replaced. With a SaaS product, I have to worry about whether their product works, if they’ll be around in a few years, how they’ll safeguard my data, if they’ll try to lock me in and increase prices, and if they can adapt to my changing needs. This decision process, alone, could easily nullify the projected savings.
kinj28 6y ago
IMHO a decision maker (say a CFO) will 1) choose battle to pick depending on his/her burning priorities 2) make investments where he/she can maximise ROI Also keep in mind she/ he has limited Bandwidth for new initiatives.
wazoox 6y ago
Actually money-saving devices sell poorly if you can't provide hard numbers. If the product/service you're selling has an obvious benefit / fast ROI (for instance your customer can rent/sell it for more to their own customers, or save huge amounts on their business process), it's pretty easy. However if your product / service is just "nice to have" and "can save money / help sales on the long term" it's almost impossible to close the deal unless your product /service is so cheap as to not be a problem at all.

netcan 6y ago

eh... In enterprise/saas... you eventually always have a solution looking for a problem. You have a salesforce or whatnot, and you have to sell it.