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Sequoia’s Jim Goetz: Shocking More Startups Are Not Building For The Enterprise

5 points by davidedicillo 14y ago

Codhisattva 14y ago
Enterprise is boring and has terrible deficiencies such as a long decision cycle and a heavy dependency on salesmanship.
- geoffschmidt 14y ago
  Also, arguably unlike social media, it requires domain expertise that many potential founders do not have.
  - Codhisattva 14y ago
    That's a great point. You can't really consider addressing enterprise needs until you've done a tour of duty in the cube farm gulag.
bradmilne 14y ago
I agree with geoffschmidt - domain expertise is difficult to acquire if you don't work in a large company and understand where the pain points are. Sales cycles are always going to be a hassle though and a fundamentally different skill set to acquire than building the tech.
malandrew 14y ago
I've been on the other end of the enterprise purchasing process for tech products and services many times and given my experiences as oftentimes the only technical person involved a fundamentally broken process, I would not recommend that anyone go into producing enterprise technology solutions with the exception of those products that solve problems impervious to bikeshedding. You want to solve problems that business people are capable of understanding are problems that are worth solving, but which are sufficiently complex enough that the business side of things has no other option than to defer the decision to purchase or not to those within the enterprise that are technologically competent. If bikeshedding can occur in the purchasing process and that is not a pleasant process to deal with. If you're willing to put up with bullshit, then there is money to be made, but then again many entrepreneurs left a career in entreprise because they were sick of dealing with those problems.
se85 14y ago
Makes plenty of sense to me. If you actually sit down and think of it from a entrepreneur point of view as opposed to a corporate point of view, it's pretty clear that more often than not, the risk proposition is just not worth it, and the odds are already stacked against you as an entrepreneur without bringing the enterprise into the equation.

5 points by davidedicillo 14y ago

Enterprise is boring and has terrible deficiencies such as a long decision cycle and a heavy dependency on salesmanship.

geoffschmidt 14y ago
Also, arguably unlike social media, it requires domain expertise that many potential founders do not have.
- Codhisattva 14y ago
  That's a great point. You can't really consider addressing enterprise needs until you've done a tour of duty in the cube farm gulag.

bradmilne 14y ago

I agree with geoffschmidt - domain expertise is difficult to acquire if you don't work in a large company and understand where the pain points are. Sales cycles are always going to be a hassle though and a fundamentally different skill set to acquire than building the tech.

malandrew 14y ago

I've been on the other end of the enterprise purchasing process for tech products and services many times and given my experiences as oftentimes the only technical person involved a fundamentally broken process, I would not recommend that anyone go into producing enterprise technology solutions with the exception of those products that solve problems impervious to bikeshedding. You want to solve problems that business people are capable of understanding are problems that are worth solving, but which are sufficiently complex enough that the business side of things has no other option than to defer the decision to purchase or not to those within the enterprise that are technologically competent. If bikeshedding can occur in the purchasing process and that is not a pleasant process to deal with. If you're willing to put up with bullshit, then there is money to be made, but then again many entrepreneurs left a career in entreprise because they were sick of dealing with those problems.

se85 14y ago

Makes plenty of sense to me. If you actually sit down and think of it from a entrepreneur point of view as opposed to a corporate point of view, it's pretty clear that more often than not, the risk proposition is just not worth it, and the odds are already stacked against you as an entrepreneur without bringing the enterprise into the equation.