My feelings on this subject were less jaundiced before I'd been working with large customers for a few years. The first year or so was much easier - you're hitt

My feelings on this subject were less jaundiced before I'd been working with large customers for a few years. The first year or so was much easier - you're hitting all the easy sales, the ones that are geographically close, and the technically-sophisticated early adopters. After a while you've plucked the low-hanging fruit and each sale becomes progressively more difficult and expensive. Meanwhile, the support costs for existing customers accumulate and competitors proliferate. As a startup, it's easy to differentiate yourself from competitors by offering better-quality service. The difficulty lies in scaling up to a large number of customers.