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Meta observation: lots of YC companies basically build their startups around some workload (e.g. salesforce <-> db) and sell some managed service around it. Thi

Meta observation: lots of YC companies basically build their startups around some workload (e.g. salesforce <-> db) and sell some managed service around it. This game is quite difficult to scale and sell to enterprise. But it's understandable that many technical founders are most familiar with these types of "painpoints" and thus have their startup thesis around them.

ianyanusko 3y ago
Agreed that many technical founders build on the pain points they've experienced themselves. I'm curious your take on why the managed services approach is hard to scale? IMO, the reason many YC companies struggle with enterprise sales is because it's generally much harder than PLG, with long sales cycles and delayed feedback loops. It was definitely a learning curve for us!
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Opportunity for YC (if they don't already) to maybe even have pools of fractional VPSales and sales people who can help startups through advise or taking a role, to transition to enterprise sales.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nextworddev 3y ago
  (opinions as ex-AWS GTM specialist for AI) An underrated challenge with enterprise sales is often that customers often misguidedly believe that 1) they can build it themselves, 2) they are worried about your companies ability to "scale" to their needs, and/or 3) the customer wants to "own" that responsibility for personal/political/career reasons. Sales is hard for everyone including Azure, AWS, etc, just gotta keep grinding at it.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
peterlada 3y ago
It is incredibly hard and a giant overhead on each of these SaaS startups to do marketing and enterprise sales which shows up in pricing (30-70%!) These solutions still need to be vendored in and integrated at each client. Rolling up all the YC single-feature SaaS business into a single sales org and providing an a la carte set of solutions to partners would make a ton of sense. I guess that is the theory behind SaaS.group and its ilk.

ianyanusko 3y ago

Agreed that many technical founders build on the pain points they've experienced themselves. I'm curious your take on why the managed services approach is hard to scale? IMO, the reason many YC companies struggle with enterprise sales is because it's generally much harder than PLG, with long sales cycles and delayed feedback loops. It was definitely a learning curve for us!

quickthrower2 3y ago
Opportunity for YC (if they don't already) to maybe even have pools of fractional VPSales and sales people who can help startups through advise or taking a role, to transition to enterprise sales.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nextworddev 3y ago
(opinions as ex-AWS GTM specialist for AI) An underrated challenge with enterprise sales is often that customers often misguidedly believe that 1) they can build it themselves, 2) they are worried about your companies ability to "scale" to their needs, and/or 3) the customer wants to "own" that responsibility for personal/political/career reasons. Sales is hard for everyone including Azure, AWS, etc, just gotta keep grinding at it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

peterlada 3y ago

It is incredibly hard and a giant overhead on each of these SaaS startups to do marketing and enterprise sales which shows up in pricing (30-70%!) These solutions still need to be vendored in and integrated at each client. Rolling up all the YC single-feature SaaS business into a single sales org and providing an a la carte set of solutions to partners would make a ton of sense. I guess that is the theory behind SaaS.group and its ilk.