4 ms·
Sometimes it isn't about the "big sale" but having the big company on your list of customers. It can give your company a lot of credibility.
by vb6sp6 5y ago
Sometimes it isn't about the "big sale" but having the big company on your list of customers. It can give your company a lot of credibility.
- duxup 5y agoI don't doubt it for a start up... but I also wonder what value that is vs. 18 months of work and turn that into a deal that is really a loss, and the customer struggles to use the product ... and now you've got a big dominating customer who is going to continue to eat up time ... I wonder how many profitable customers could be had in that time.
- hpcjoe 5y agoI've lived situation. Large co bought one of our systems, as their internally built systems weren't up to the task. We sold it at effectively break even. This was in part due to my business partner's view that we could turn this into a bigger deal. Well, no. We couldn't. The "customer" wanted specifically to see how we did what we did, in order to copy this. It took me a while to figure it out, but I did, and we wound up walking away from it. Partner was angry, but it was absolutely the right business decision to terminate the interaction. PSA for any small startup firm with real differentiation: BigCo will, absolutely, positively will, try to see if they can replicate your value on their own rather than buy from you. Patents won't stop this. Pretty much nothing will, apart from an architecture and implementation that they don't understand. They will mess with you. Approach with extreme caution, and be prepared to cut bait quickly.
- doctor_eval 5y agoI used to say that our customers were our biggest competitors. You have to execute 10x better and be ½ the price if you want them to buy your product rather than replicate it. Or (better) you have to know something they don’t — and keep it to yourself.
- everybodyknows 5y ago>Patents won't stop this. Can you elaborate? Is this because they'll infringe anyway, then use their big legal budget to game the system?
- devtul 5y agoMy guess is basically yes. Once they copy your small startup features and you go bust, what is really left to do? Spend an inordinate amount of time and money that you might not have chasing some compensation? How feasible is that.
- pyuser583 5y agoSmall companies that go bust have their assets acquired. That includes patents. Corporate parent trolls eat them up and sue. There are publicly traded companies whose sole means of profit is patent law suits.
- bathtub365 5y agoThey aren’t really your customer if they aren’t either paying you or otherwise hinging part of their own success on your product.
- vb6sp6 5y agoThey used the product (in our case). They just asked for things that no one has wanted since.
- doctor_eval 5y agoI don’t think credibility is the right word. I agree that a well known customer can help the sales process up to a point. But I f you are in a b2b business and you have 100 customers on your books then having a name-brand customer is probably not that important. In fact, if you have 100 customers on your books then it’s likely that customer number 101 has heard of many of them even if the regular guy on the street has not. That one big customer - especially if it’s an early one - can really screw up your relationships with the customers that actually spend money with you - and what happens to your credibility when they quit?
- gowld 5y agoAmazon (often) demands a year of free service from a vendor, and requires an NDA and charges a fee to cancel the NDA so you can claim them as a customer
- jbjohns 5y agoExcept Wal-Mart generally would not allow their name to be listed as a user of the product either.