4 ms·

Brilliant point. May I ask if anyone is aware what type of businesses to target? SMB? I always thought enterprise has super long sale cycles and won't trust a

Brilliant point. May I ask if anyone is aware what type of businesses to target? SMB? I always thought enterprise has super long sale cycles and won't trust a new product easily ( more decision makers) but to get 10 businesses to pay $833 wouldn't that need enterprise customers not SMB?

grepLeigh 4y ago
This is tough to give general advice for, because you'll want to tap your personal strengths. Here's a great talk by Jason Cohen, if you're trying to design a bootstrapped business. He even mentions the 1,000 true fans goal as being unrealistic compared to a handful of high-paying customers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw Happy to brainstorm though. Here's a few questions to get the ball rolling: What're 2-3 things that people have come to you to learn? What are the 3 problems that are top-of-mind for the person who signs your paychecks? What are the top 3 sources of revenue for your current employer? How much is from expansion revenue (existing customers paying more over time) vs. new logos? Besides the all-in cost of personnel (salary, payroll taxes, health insurance, etc), what are the top expenses of your current employer? Follow the money! Once you start digging into how a company earns and spends money, you'll find ways to add revenue or reduce spend w/ software.
billyhoffman 4y ago
Below a certain threshold a Sales cycle length is driven by price, not customer size. I’ve sold a $300 a month SaaS product to Fortune 500 companies like Target and Apple, as well as smaller sized companies with 50-100 people. Pretty much $500 or less a frontline manager can put it on their corporate AMEX and the sales cycle was similar length (1-2 weeks) Above a certain deal size company type does matter. I was recently invoked with two deals, both around $20K a year. One was to a medium sized company and it closed in about a month. The other was the same amount but with a large enterprise, and that took about 10 weeks, because legal had to be involved. The security team had to be involved, we had to get added as an approved vendor, etc

grepLeigh 4y ago

This is tough to give general advice for, because you'll want to tap your personal strengths. Here's a great talk by Jason Cohen, if you're trying to design a bootstrapped business. He even mentions the 1,000 true fans goal as being unrealistic compared to a handful of high-paying customers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw Happy to brainstorm though. Here's a few questions to get the ball rolling: What're 2-3 things that people have come to you to learn? What are the 3 problems that are top-of-mind for the person who signs your paychecks? What are the top 3 sources of revenue for your current employer? How much is from expansion revenue (existing customers paying more over time) vs. new logos? Besides the all-in cost of personnel (salary, payroll taxes, health insurance, etc), what are the top expenses of your current employer? Follow the money! Once you start digging into how a company earns and spends money, you'll find ways to add revenue or reduce spend w/ software.

billyhoffman 4y ago

Below a certain threshold a Sales cycle length is driven by price, not customer size. I’ve sold a $300 a month SaaS product to Fortune 500 companies like Target and Apple, as well as smaller sized companies with 50-100 people. Pretty much $500 or less a frontline manager can put it on their corporate AMEX and the sales cycle was similar length (1-2 weeks) Above a certain deal size company type does matter. I was recently invoked with two deals, both around $20K a year. One was to a medium sized company and it closed in about a month. The other was the same amount but with a large enterprise, and that took about 10 weeks, because legal had to be involved. The security team had to be involved, we had to get added as an approved vendor, etc