4 ms·

Selling Your Software To Businesses - TwilioCon 2012 presentation

165 points by stakent 13y ago

tocomment 13y ago
Are there any twilio based businesses left to start? It always struck me a cool technology. Perhaps a service to automatically call customers when something is cancelled due to weather, etc?
- orangethirty 13y ago
  You can copy an existing business (that works), and apply it to a different industry.
  - tocomment 13y ago
    Sorry, I'm drawing a blank. Can you give an example to get me thinking?
    - wikwocket 13y ago
      Pick any business tactic using phone/SMS, and replace the nouns with other nouns. For example: Papa John's sends me a text every Friday at 4pm, giving me a pizza coupon for the weekend. I suspect this drives a ridiculous increase in pizza orders for them. What other business can send a coupon to a customer at a time they are likely to want it? - Service for movie theaters to text concession coupons on Friday afternoons - Service for web gift stores to text coupons to customers before holidays - Service for restaurants to text daily coupon right before lunch
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    Or copy a startup that limits itself to email / iPhone notifications (like e.g. peerby.com) and add SMS to have a much bigger reach.
  - Cass 13y ago
    Or copy an existing business and apply it to the same industry in a different country. No reason, say, Appointment Reminder wouldn't work just as well in Germany.
    - orangethirty 13y ago
      Yes. Note that when I say industry, I also cover geographical differences.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - wikwocket 13y ago
      Or copy an existing business, and apply it to the same industry, in the same country. Competition is proof that the market exists. And if there is an existing service provider, by definition there are customers that are not 100% happy with them. B2B markets are usually very large, and there is room for lots of growth.
    - MDS100 13y ago
      Hey, you are a MD student from Germany as well + interested in Programming/SAAS? Any way to contact you?
      - Cass 13y ago
        Finished studying as of November last year, actually. And sure, send me an email, cassandrexx on gmail.
- patio11 13y ago
  There's probably ten thousand things that you can do with a telephone which can be offered to a business as straight-up monthly SaaS, and even more ways to embed a phone call/SMS into a business/product. Seriously, if you lack for ideas, pick a business and enumerate all the calls they are likely to make. Anything where you use the common pattern of "Speak to an employee, as an alternative to a REST interface" is likely amenable to Twilio-ization.
  - tocomment 13y ago
    Thanks. What do you mean about the speak-to-an-employee part?
    - patio11 13y ago
      Example: I used to work for a large office supply store. The most common phone call was "I ordered something from you on X. When does it arrive?" You know what I'm going to do, right? Ask you for enough identifying information, find your order in the computer, and then read you the expected delivery date. The most common outgoing call was "Thanks for your fax order. We're calling to confirm receipt, tell you that you didn't calculate the total correctly and the actual price is $42.06 or $3 less than you expected, and inform you to expect delivery tomorrow." This phone call routinely took 20% of order entry time. Everything in that phone call just used me as a voice interface to our database. A Twilio app would have obsoleted an entire floor of employees at that company.
      - jmduke 13y ago
        This kind of anecdote makes me wish it was feasible to shadow a BigCo in a random industry for a week and just spend the entire time taking notes on choke points and practices.
        barry-cotter 13y ago
        It might be, you could ask. People are also generally quite willing to talk about their jobs, what they do all day, the annoying parts of said jobs. Or you could get a job for a week or a month in a place like that. Actually doing it beats seeing it done for insight.
- tocomment 13y ago
  Here are a couple ideas from brain storming. Can anyone critque? A service to automatically call the pharmacy and request a refill. (I hate having to call every month) A service to call a restaurant for you and find out how long the wait is. A service to make automated collections calls for businesses.
  - Cass 13y ago
    You'd probably do better to target businesses than consumers. Sure, you don't want to call the pharmacy, but how much are you really willing to pay to save yourself one phone call once a month? (Beware, if you're a highly paid and highly antisocial HN user, your response to this is probably going to be "a lot more than the average customer".) Same problem for the restaurant call. On the other hand, how much would your pharmacist be willing to pay to save his highly paid staff the four hours they spend on the phone every month reminding customers that the prescription they've ordered has been in for a week now? Find a way to solve problems for businesses, not consumers. I suspect automated collection calls are illegal, or otherwise already exist, but if they're not and they don't, that sounds like a way to make absolute piles of cash from collection agencies (in a slightly ethically dodgy way).
    - tocomment 13y ago
      Thanks for the feedback. I guess instead of collection calls, I'd call them payment reminders. This site appears to do just that: http://www.call-center-tech.com/payment-reminder.htm http://www.call-center-tech.com/payment-reminder.htm
  - charleshaanel 13y ago
    Why not start with the customer first? Ask them questions to uncover their workflow...then pose questions like "what really makes you want to pull your hair out when it comes to doing xyz"... Also at the OP said, any thing that involves communicating with phone + manual work - things businesses are already doing - are opportunities (potentially)
kaa2102 13y ago
I think the presentation does an amazing job informing entrepreneurs how to sell to companies once they're in your sales pipeline. How do you get their attention in the first place? I asked Bill Campbell and Ben Horowitz this question at an entrepreneurship forum and they responded press and business connections. I imagine that SEO, search marketing, conferences, trade shows, print ads, and viral marketing could be helpful. Has anyone had success using other marketing methods to sell to large companies?
- drewda 13y ago
  Here are assorted ideas from Gabriel Weinberg (of the DuckDuckGo search engine): http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/04/in-the-pursuit-of-traction-have-you-considered-all-verticals.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/04/in-the-pursuit-o...
  - kaa2102 13y ago
    Wow! Thank you!
charleshaanel 13y ago
Patio11 is kinda cute in a geeky kind of way (woman in the closet about her predilection towards nerdy types...excuse the lack of PCness Patrick).... Anyhoo, on a different note, the material on hybrid sales was most interesting. I believe it was David (Skok) who mentioned how much adding just one additional touch balloons customer acquisition costs considerably. http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/business-models/the-touchless-conversion/ http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/business-models/the-touchles... IMHO, an unaccounted touch in the sales process is probably one of the hidden costs that harms new businesses the most. The fact is, many business owners just don't track these steps in their workflow or sales process (failing to understand that when they want to scale, they'll need to add more staff and HR costs considerably)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
gscott 13y ago
The video was very good here is what I wrote down from it: - Pricing page with 4 plans. Try to price each plan to a different customer in your targeted market what it is worth to them, not what it costs you. - Annual billing: Ask via a 1 time special email after the person has started using it and likes it - Have live chat to make more sales - Email more during the trial period at least 6-8 times in the first month - Offer a free month "course" via email, on the 4th email or so start working in how your product solves the pain/problem. - Send a "rescue" email if the person seems like they have become busy and might fall away - Some bigger organizations will want a sla & support agreement even if it is just you already working on the system fixing things anyway. - Offer a Service Level Agreement if someone asks for it, charge more ask for a 1 yr commitment - Offer a support / maintenance contract, ask for a 1yr commitment on the regular fee to lock customer in. - Offer industry options, HIPPA, etc charge more - Practice saying "I can do that with a 1yr commitment" when customer ask for something special - Highly consider getting errors and omissions insurance - Don't negotiate sales based upon your cost. Don't even mention your cost it is not relevant. What matters is how much the customer will 'save' or 'make' with your product.

165 points by stakent 13y ago

Are there any twilio based businesses left to start? It always struck me a cool technology. Perhaps a service to automatically call customers when something is cancelled due to weather, etc?

orangethirty 13y ago
You can copy an existing business (that works), and apply it to a different industry.
- tocomment 13y ago
  Sorry, I'm drawing a blank. Can you give an example to get me thinking?
  - wikwocket 13y ago
    Pick any business tactic using phone/SMS, and replace the nouns with other nouns. For example: Papa John's sends me a text every Friday at 4pm, giving me a pizza coupon for the weekend. I suspect this drives a ridiculous increase in pizza orders for them. What other business can send a coupon to a customer at a time they are likely to want it? - Service for movie theaters to text concession coupons on Friday afternoons - Service for web gift stores to text coupons to customers before holidays - Service for restaurants to text daily coupon right before lunch
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  Or copy a startup that limits itself to email / iPhone notifications (like e.g. peerby.com) and add SMS to have a much bigger reach.
- Cass 13y ago
  Or copy an existing business and apply it to the same industry in a different country. No reason, say, Appointment Reminder wouldn't work just as well in Germany.
  - orangethirty 13y ago
    Yes. Note that when I say industry, I also cover geographical differences.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - wikwocket 13y ago
    Or copy an existing business, and apply it to the same industry, in the same country. Competition is proof that the market exists. And if there is an existing service provider, by definition there are customers that are not 100% happy with them. B2B markets are usually very large, and there is room for lots of growth.
  - MDS100 13y ago
    Hey, you are a MD student from Germany as well + interested in Programming/SAAS? Any way to contact you?
    - Cass 13y ago
      Finished studying as of November last year, actually. And sure, send me an email, cassandrexx on gmail.
patio11 13y ago
There's probably ten thousand things that you can do with a telephone which can be offered to a business as straight-up monthly SaaS, and even more ways to embed a phone call/SMS into a business/product. Seriously, if you lack for ideas, pick a business and enumerate all the calls they are likely to make. Anything where you use the common pattern of "Speak to an employee, as an alternative to a REST interface" is likely amenable to Twilio-ization.
- tocomment 13y ago
  Thanks. What do you mean about the speak-to-an-employee part?
  - patio11 13y ago
    Example: I used to work for a large office supply store. The most common phone call was "I ordered something from you on X. When does it arrive?" You know what I'm going to do, right? Ask you for enough identifying information, find your order in the computer, and then read you the expected delivery date. The most common outgoing call was "Thanks for your fax order. We're calling to confirm receipt, tell you that you didn't calculate the total correctly and the actual price is $42.06 or $3 less than you expected, and inform you to expect delivery tomorrow." This phone call routinely took 20% of order entry time. Everything in that phone call just used me as a voice interface to our database. A Twilio app would have obsoleted an entire floor of employees at that company.
    - jmduke 13y ago
      This kind of anecdote makes me wish it was feasible to shadow a BigCo in a random industry for a week and just spend the entire time taking notes on choke points and practices.
      - barry-cotter 13y ago
        It might be, you could ask. People are also generally quite willing to talk about their jobs, what they do all day, the annoying parts of said jobs. Or you could get a job for a week or a month in a place like that. Actually doing it beats seeing it done for insight.
tocomment 13y ago
Here are a couple ideas from brain storming. Can anyone critque? A service to automatically call the pharmacy and request a refill. (I hate having to call every month) A service to call a restaurant for you and find out how long the wait is. A service to make automated collections calls for businesses.
- Cass 13y ago
  You'd probably do better to target businesses than consumers. Sure, you don't want to call the pharmacy, but how much are you really willing to pay to save yourself one phone call once a month? (Beware, if you're a highly paid and highly antisocial HN user, your response to this is probably going to be "a lot more than the average customer".) Same problem for the restaurant call. On the other hand, how much would your pharmacist be willing to pay to save his highly paid staff the four hours they spend on the phone every month reminding customers that the prescription they've ordered has been in for a week now? Find a way to solve problems for businesses, not consumers. I suspect automated collection calls are illegal, or otherwise already exist, but if they're not and they don't, that sounds like a way to make absolute piles of cash from collection agencies (in a slightly ethically dodgy way).
  - tocomment 13y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. I guess instead of collection calls, I'd call them payment reminders. This site appears to do just that: http://www.call-center-tech.com/payment-reminder.htm http://www.call-center-tech.com/payment-reminder.htm
- charleshaanel 13y ago
  Why not start with the customer first? Ask them questions to uncover their workflow...then pose questions like "what really makes you want to pull your hair out when it comes to doing xyz"... Also at the OP said, any thing that involves communicating with phone + manual work - things businesses are already doing - are opportunities (potentially)

kaa2102 13y ago

I think the presentation does an amazing job informing entrepreneurs how to sell to companies once they're in your sales pipeline. How do you get their attention in the first place? I asked Bill Campbell and Ben Horowitz this question at an entrepreneurship forum and they responded press and business connections. I imagine that SEO, search marketing, conferences, trade shows, print ads, and viral marketing could be helpful. Has anyone had success using other marketing methods to sell to large companies?

drewda 13y ago
Here are assorted ideas from Gabriel Weinberg (of the DuckDuckGo search engine): http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/04/in-the-pursuit-of-traction-have-you-considered-all-verticals.html http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/04/in-the-pursuit-o...
- kaa2102 13y ago
  Wow! Thank you!

charleshaanel 13y ago

Patio11 is kinda cute in a geeky kind of way (woman in the closet about her predilection towards nerdy types...excuse the lack of PCness Patrick).... Anyhoo, on a different note, the material on hybrid sales was most interesting. I believe it was David (Skok) who mentioned how much adding just one additional touch balloons customer acquisition costs considerably. http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/business-models/the-touchless-conversion/ http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/business-models/the-touchles... IMHO, an unaccounted touch in the sales process is probably one of the hidden costs that harms new businesses the most. The fact is, many business owners just don't track these steps in their workflow or sales process (failing to understand that when they want to scale, they'll need to add more staff and HR costs considerably)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

gscott 13y ago

The video was very good here is what I wrote down from it: - Pricing page with 4 plans. Try to price each plan to a different customer in your targeted market what it is worth to them, not what it costs you. - Annual billing: Ask via a 1 time special email after the person has started using it and likes it - Have live chat to make more sales - Email more during the trial period at least 6-8 times in the first month - Offer a free month "course" via email, on the 4th email or so start working in how your product solves the pain/problem. - Send a "rescue" email if the person seems like they have become busy and might fall away - Some bigger organizations will want a sla & support agreement even if it is just you already working on the system fixing things anyway. - Offer a Service Level Agreement if someone asks for it, charge more ask for a 1 yr commitment - Offer a support / maintenance contract, ask for a 1yr commitment on the regular fee to lock customer in. - Offer industry options, HIPPA, etc charge more - Practice saying "I can do that with a 1yr commitment" when customer ask for something special - Highly consider getting errors and omissions insurance - Don't negotiate sales based upon your cost. Don't even mention your cost it is not relevant. What matters is how much the customer will 'save' or 'make' with your product.