3 ms·

B2B puts you at the mercy of "your next customer's wished feature". The bigger the "B" you're trying to sell to, the bigger the desire to say yes. This is a ve

B2B puts you at the mercy of "your next customer's wished feature". The bigger the "B" you're trying to sell to, the bigger the desire to say yes. This is a very dangerous path. If you're DHH, you can say no. If you're responding to RFPs for a living... It becomes complicated. Not impossible of course, but it's a different path altogether.

bob1029 1y ago
> B2B puts you at the mercy of "your next customer's wished feature". Yes. > The bigger the "B" you're trying to sell to, the bigger the desire to say yes. Absolutely. > This is a very dangerous path. You lost me here. What you term "a very dangerous path" I call "a roadmap". The bigger the customer, the more they can pay. Also, just because it's 'B' and not 'C' doesn't mean there aren't humans involved. You can go a long way (often, all the way) with a simple 1:1 conversation with the most senior person responsible for your project on the customer's side.
- phtrivier 1y ago
  > What you term "a very dangerous path" I call "a roadmap". It's dangerous because the wishes of the next customer might contradict the wishes of the previous customer ; or worse, the wishes of the next next customer, etc... Building your roadmap becomes a balancing act of "staying on course", "changing course when you realize there are other opportunities there", "guessing the opportunity costs of everything", etc... I'm not in a marketing position, but I suspect there is a slight difference between "we're hearing it from customers, and it would be a good idea to work on X, Y" vs "X is item n°2345 in a 5000 items RFP, and if we don't do it we're not getting the contract at all". > The bigger the customer, the more they can pay. Also, the more they can "not pay" ;) Meaning that if, for some reason, you can not fully implement all their wishes (you're going to try to avoid that, but it can be hard), they might be in a possible to just pull the plug altogether. Sure, you might deem they demands unreasonable, but then it comes down to: - realizing that they might know better than you do (by definition, they've been in the business longer than you do) - the old adage: "can you stay solvent longer than your customers stay unreasonable ?"

bob1029 1y ago

> B2B puts you at the mercy of "your next customer's wished feature". Yes. > The bigger the "B" you're trying to sell to, the bigger the desire to say yes. Absolutely. > This is a very dangerous path. You lost me here. What you term "a very dangerous path" I call "a roadmap". The bigger the customer, the more they can pay. Also, just because it's 'B' and not 'C' doesn't mean there aren't humans involved. You can go a long way (often, all the way) with a simple 1:1 conversation with the most senior person responsible for your project on the customer's side.

phtrivier 1y ago
> What you term "a very dangerous path" I call "a roadmap". It's dangerous because the wishes of the next customer might contradict the wishes of the previous customer ; or worse, the wishes of the next next customer, etc... Building your roadmap becomes a balancing act of "staying on course", "changing course when you realize there are other opportunities there", "guessing the opportunity costs of everything", etc... I'm not in a marketing position, but I suspect there is a slight difference between "we're hearing it from customers, and it would be a good idea to work on X, Y" vs "X is item n°2345 in a 5000 items RFP, and if we don't do it we're not getting the contract at all". > The bigger the customer, the more they can pay. Also, the more they can "not pay" ;) Meaning that if, for some reason, you can not fully implement all their wishes (you're going to try to avoid that, but it can be hard), they might be in a possible to just pull the plug altogether. Sure, you might deem they demands unreasonable, but then it comes down to: - realizing that they might know better than you do (by definition, they've been in the business longer than you do) - the old adage: "can you stay solvent longer than your customers stay unreasonable ?"