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Okay I just sent a bunch of linked in messages, does it make sense to target young sales person at enterprise companies? I'm guessing people like director of sa

Okay I just sent a bunch of linked in messages, does it make sense to target young sales person at enterprise companies? I'm guessing people like director of sales or vp of sales won't give a crap. Ideally looking for hungry people, who are self motivated and looking to make higher comission that compensates them for the added risk.

keithwarren 13y ago
Cold calling people on LinkedIn probably wont prove all that successful but it can't hurt. The real question is do you have anything built yet? Do you have domain expertise in the space you are targeting? In lots of cases enterprise software for niche scenarios is born out of a consulting engagement: Company A contracts you to build them a system for tracking widgets. You do so and get their permission to use that software in other projects. Company B wants widget shipment calculation software so you go to them and say 'I know about widgets, we built this widget tracking thing and we can add shipment calculation to it'. That is how the ball gets rolling. Most software in this kind of space is packed full of features and rules that are not easily just spawned out of thin air - it usually takes many man years of development.
- notastartup 13y ago
  yeah I figured I contacted a few sales guys on linkedin but they weren't interested. I have some stuff built and I have very good knowledge in this area I'm pursuing. There are some existing enterprise guys like kapowsoftware.com that I'm trying to emulate.
saaaaaam 13y ago
Your first challenge is selling to the sales people. Not many people can sell effectively. You need to catch their attention with something more than "I have no product, but I'd like you to sell it - but I can only pay you when you close a deal". Good sales people are always on the lookout for the next thing they can sell. Snare their attention by being something they can sell. How you do that is up to you, but good content about interesting markets with lots of upside always gets my attention.

keithwarren 13y ago

Cold calling people on LinkedIn probably wont prove all that successful but it can't hurt. The real question is do you have anything built yet? Do you have domain expertise in the space you are targeting? In lots of cases enterprise software for niche scenarios is born out of a consulting engagement: Company A contracts you to build them a system for tracking widgets. You do so and get their permission to use that software in other projects. Company B wants widget shipment calculation software so you go to them and say 'I know about widgets, we built this widget tracking thing and we can add shipment calculation to it'. That is how the ball gets rolling. Most software in this kind of space is packed full of features and rules that are not easily just spawned out of thin air - it usually takes many man years of development.

notastartup 13y ago
yeah I figured I contacted a few sales guys on linkedin but they weren't interested. I have some stuff built and I have very good knowledge in this area I'm pursuing. There are some existing enterprise guys like kapowsoftware.com that I'm trying to emulate.

saaaaaam 13y ago

Your first challenge is selling to the sales people. Not many people can sell effectively. You need to catch their attention with something more than "I have no product, but I'd like you to sell it - but I can only pay you when you close a deal". Good sales people are always on the lookout for the next thing they can sell. Snare their attention by being something they can sell. How you do that is up to you, but good content about interesting markets with lots of upside always gets my attention.