I've sold software from a small start up to automotive companies. Enterprise sales have longer sales cycles. Plan for 6 mo. to a year to navigate the purchasin

I've sold software from a small start up to automotive companies. Enterprise sales have longer sales cycles. Plan for 6 mo. to a year to navigate the purchasing system and users at the companies. We used a prototype to get in the door and generate interest. The users and customers at these companies provided valuable feedback for product design. Developing a product that meets the needs of these customers we met was they next key step. Sadly the venture I was involved with failed this step. As far as them 'stealing' your concept, many large companies do not want to spend their internal capital budget to build tools and would rather focus those resources on their 'core competency.' That means buying commercial tools can make more sense in their budgets than building something on their own. In fact, our product development got a boost from one internal R&D team who lost their budget, and asked us to take the code they had developed and build a product. Then they would buy it from us using their ample remaining tools budget.