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You need to be doing enterprise sales not marketing. There is a lot of advice here and in general on that but you definitely need to be making calls with that

You need to be doing enterprise sales not marketing. There is a lot of advice here and in general on that but you definitely need to be making calls with that type of business.

padjo 2y ago
Yep nobody with the problem you’re offering to solve is going to solve it by googling and picking some random company they’ve never heard of with no track record.
- bjornsing 2y ago
  Not even click a search ad and fill in a contact form? When I’m on the other side of the table I do that. But perhaps I’m unique in that aspect? (I understand there won’t be any significant business without enterprise sales. But that’s not what I’m looking for at this stage.)
  - narnarpapadaddy 2y ago
    The companies that have these types of problems all have AWS reps (or whatever vendor) that get first crack at a solution, even if their senior engineers or CTOs do some googling. Frequently discounts can be negotiated on products that aren’t a perfect fit, or companies will get early access to new products that solve their problem (AWS calls this “limited preview”). A good chunk of B2B infrastructure products like this are developed using a “golden partner” model. The first customer (or few) gets a free or reduced cost license, the developer gets a real-world scenario with real data to use to figure out what the minimal functionality actually is to be a marketable product and to work out bugs. This arrangement frequently requires a preexisting relationship and trust between both parties.
    - bjornsing 2y ago
      Yep. Always a bit dangerous to go up against AWS and similar. My hope here is that this product is too niche for the major cloud vendors to invest in. But since Uber is building stuff themselves that assumption may be wrong. A “golden partner” model makes a lot of sense, thanks.
      - narnarpapadaddy 2y ago
        If you know a technology leader at a company that has this problem, reach out and ask if they’ve had any pain related to it. Ask to take them out to lunch and tell them about a solution you’ve been working out. Or even a short demo call. See if they’d be interested in an “innovation partnership.” You give them a discounted/free license (can be time limited to a year or however long it takes to validate that your solution works and saves them money - then returns to full-price), they agree to feature prominently in your marketing material or provide a reference for your next lead.
  - macspoofing 2y ago
    >When I’m on the other side of the table I do that No, you don't. There are many established storage solutions out there. If you're in the market for one, you can easily fill days, weeks or months vetting those. So, why would you bother dealing with a sales rep from a random one you never heard of before, and isn't used by anyone. You don't even provide any details on what makes it different or better from anything else out there.
    - bjornsing 2y ago
      Well the reason I’m working on this in the first place is that when I was on the other side of the table I was looking for one. I filled in the contact forms of a couple of different startups that had products somewhat in line with what I was looking for, and talked to their sales reps. Admittedly they weren’t as early stage as my project, but on the other hand they weren’t 100% focused on my use-case either. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was hoping that someone with a write intensive workload would want to spend some time evaluating a product built specifically for that. But perhaps I’m wrong? Even if your workload was 99% writes you’d rather go to some established player (e.g. MongoDB) with a product optimized for 50/50 read/write?
      - macspoofing 2y ago
        >I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was hoping that someone with a write intensive workload would want to spend some time evaluating a product built specifically for that. Again, it's not clear to me exactly what it is you're doing that's any different from the plethora of existing off-the-shelf solutions. You're saying that you started this project/company because you were looking for a solution to a specific use case (write-intensive workloads) and existing options didn't work - can you expand on that? Can you create a chart, for example, that lists out the specific things that Haystackdb does and alternatives don't? Presumably, if you optimize for write-intensive workloads, there are some drawbacks when it comes to reads - no? Or maybe storage? That's good to highlight. What you need are whitepapers/blog posts/youtube videos/talks at conferences/etc. that highlight the technical details of your solution, because you're trying to get technical people interested in your product to the point where they will invest time to learn more.

You need to be doing enterprise sales not marketing. There is a lot of advice here and in general on that but you definitely need to be making calls with that type of business.

padjo 2y ago

Yep nobody with the problem you’re offering to solve is going to solve it by googling and picking some random company they’ve never heard of with no track record.

bjornsing 2y ago
Not even click a search ad and fill in a contact form? When I’m on the other side of the table I do that. But perhaps I’m unique in that aspect? (I understand there won’t be any significant business without enterprise sales. But that’s not what I’m looking for at this stage.)
- narnarpapadaddy 2y ago
  The companies that have these types of problems all have AWS reps (or whatever vendor) that get first crack at a solution, even if their senior engineers or CTOs do some googling. Frequently discounts can be negotiated on products that aren’t a perfect fit, or companies will get early access to new products that solve their problem (AWS calls this “limited preview”). A good chunk of B2B infrastructure products like this are developed using a “golden partner” model. The first customer (or few) gets a free or reduced cost license, the developer gets a real-world scenario with real data to use to figure out what the minimal functionality actually is to be a marketable product and to work out bugs. This arrangement frequently requires a preexisting relationship and trust between both parties.
  - bjornsing 2y ago
    Yep. Always a bit dangerous to go up against AWS and similar. My hope here is that this product is too niche for the major cloud vendors to invest in. But since Uber is building stuff themselves that assumption may be wrong. A “golden partner” model makes a lot of sense, thanks.
    - narnarpapadaddy 2y ago
      If you know a technology leader at a company that has this problem, reach out and ask if they’ve had any pain related to it. Ask to take them out to lunch and tell them about a solution you’ve been working out. Or even a short demo call. See if they’d be interested in an “innovation partnership.” You give them a discounted/free license (can be time limited to a year or however long it takes to validate that your solution works and saves them money - then returns to full-price), they agree to feature prominently in your marketing material or provide a reference for your next lead.
- macspoofing 2y ago
  >When I’m on the other side of the table I do that No, you don't. There are many established storage solutions out there. If you're in the market for one, you can easily fill days, weeks or months vetting those. So, why would you bother dealing with a sales rep from a random one you never heard of before, and isn't used by anyone. You don't even provide any details on what makes it different or better from anything else out there.
  - bjornsing 2y ago
    Well the reason I’m working on this in the first place is that when I was on the other side of the table I was looking for one. I filled in the contact forms of a couple of different startups that had products somewhat in line with what I was looking for, and talked to their sales reps. Admittedly they weren’t as early stage as my project, but on the other hand they weren’t 100% focused on my use-case either. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was hoping that someone with a write intensive workload would want to spend some time evaluating a product built specifically for that. But perhaps I’m wrong? Even if your workload was 99% writes you’d rather go to some established player (e.g. MongoDB) with a product optimized for 50/50 read/write?
    - macspoofing 2y ago
      >I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was hoping that someone with a write intensive workload would want to spend some time evaluating a product built specifically for that. Again, it's not clear to me exactly what it is you're doing that's any different from the plethora of existing off-the-shelf solutions. You're saying that you started this project/company because you were looking for a solution to a specific use case (write-intensive workloads) and existing options didn't work - can you expand on that? Can you create a chart, for example, that lists out the specific things that Haystackdb does and alternatives don't? Presumably, if you optimize for write-intensive workloads, there are some drawbacks when it comes to reads - no? Or maybe storage? That's good to highlight. What you need are whitepapers/blog posts/youtube videos/talks at conferences/etc. that highlight the technical details of your solution, because you're trying to get technical people interested in your product to the point where they will invest time to learn more.