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When discussing B2B sales on HN, I often see black and white arguments. Either you're in the B2C space, or you sell your products for north of 50K. This is IMH
by benoitg 13y ago
When discussing B2B sales on HN, I often see black and white arguments. Either you're in the B2C space, or you sell your products for north of 50K.
This is IMHO a false dichotomy, there are lots and lots of opportunities between these extremes. I'm currently in a project at the intersection of software and shipping, it sells like hotcakes, we currently have a conversion rate (inbound prospects to signed clients) of more than 75%.
This is far from easy to pull off, and there are a few points I'd like to make based on my current situation (we're pulling a gross margin of $500 to $5000 by client):
* Selling pure software is hard. At the most basic level, we sell shipping rates and the accompanying software is the cherry on top (I'm saying this even tough I run the technical side of things). We're doing well because our target market understands the value proposition even better than we do, we manage to offer a free product and make money on it.
* Co-founders matter. I couldn't even have had the idea on my own, much less the resources (contacts, skills, ...) to launch the business. I'm very fortunate to have met co-founders that are beasts on the business and shipping & logistics sides of things, we form an awesome triptych, which is a very delicate balance to have.
* Everything takes much more time than you expect. You're at ease in the technical domain, this won't be much of a problem while developing your core product. But selling will take much of your time, it's is a time-consuming activity and you don't know anything about it. Plugging your product in your client's systems will take time, either because your client hasn't any in-house developer or they're less than half as skilled as you are.
If you're a solo hacker selling pure software in the B2B space, you are, I believe, in for a rough, rough ride.