4 ms·

someone below suggested hitting up all the multi-million dollar companies that use openSSL. A now deleted response said something to the effect of "sure, that'

by lsc 13y ago

someone below suggested hitting up all the multi-million dollar companies that use openSSL. A now deleted response said something to the effect of "sure, that's easy. I'll just call up the purchasing department." I don't know a lot about large companies, but I do know a little about getting small companies to give you money. Small companies are cheap, but there are a lot of us, and if you only need $800K, well, that is 800 companies donating a grand a year each. There are many thousands of small technical businesses who can afford a grand a year. So. First problem, for a small company? You need to give us something to buy. This helps out tax-wise, and it also makes the deal feel better. Hell, you can call OpenSSL a for-profit at that point, which means little paperwork for you, and if you pay out everything you get as salary, you have to pay the same payroll taxes on that either way anyhow, if I am not mistaken. So, what can the OpenSSL people sell me without causing a conflict of interest? How about advertising? maybe give me a website badge. "OpenSSL sponsor" maybe with a silver/gold/bronze or something (or maybe even just the amount) - Also put me on the sponsors list on the OpenSSL website with a link to my website and maybe my tagline or a logo at the more expensive levels. I'll take the grand out of my advertising budget and it's all above-board tax wise for me, and the paperwork is easy. I've bought advertising before.

logicallee 13y ago
The problem isn't a lack of >I'll take the grand out of my advertising budget and it's all above-board tax wise for me, and the paperwork is easy. I've bought advertising before. It's a lack of, >I'll call up and close 800 businesses for you and keep track of invoicing them. As well as do product management on getting something together that is something they can support. I don't need any resources.
- lsc 13y ago
  At this level, I wouldn't call anyone. In my experience, the best publicity is news stories written by other people. Many years ago, when I was the best ram per dollar deal around, a blogger's benchmark that made the reddit and hn front pages took my business from almost nothing to "I can quit my dayjob" money in a very short period of time. I bet if the OpenSSL folks announced this soonish, the sales work would be done by the media. In fact, I think this is the big advantage of the low-dollar small-business accounts. You can say "here is the deal, take it or leave it" and wait for people to take it. For the big corporate deals, you have to meet and call and actually sell. And for invoicing at this scale, use cashflow accounting. The sale closes when you receive payment. There will be some work matching up checks to logos, but at $1000 a pop, the 5% of customers who don't write the account identifier on the check are worth tracking down. You do need to do accounting, but you need to do accounting at the current $2000/year level, too. I don't think they are committing themselves to all that much extra work if they only get a few buyers. I have... intimate experience with the "I got too many customers before I had sufficient automation" problem... and yeah, it is a problem when you have $50/yr customers. It is not a problem, I think, when your smallest customers are $1000/yr.
rythie 13y ago
The purchasing department is the last place you'd want to call - purchasing is department people in the org. go through to buy things, not the other way around. You'd either want to talk to some senior in IT security or anyone above them, upto including the CTO or someone in risk management/liability. Doing sales to those people is most likely expensive, probably costing $10k+ per client which would be the cost of someone going to networking events, visiting prospects, presentations, documents etc. In my experience paying yearly is much preferred to paying monthly in large orgs. due to the process that has to be gone through to purchase something (Longer than a year can cause budgeting problems).
- lsc 13y ago
  >You'd either want to talk to some senior in IT security or anyone above them, upto including the CTO or someone in risk management/liability. Doing sales to those people is most likely expensive, probably costing $10k+ per client which would be the cost of someone going to networking events, visiting prospects, presentations, documents etc. This is why I'm suggesting something that can be sold online, at a price point that doesn't require per-customer sales effort. I don't have many $1000 per year customers, but I have a few; and I have a fair number of $500+ per year customers. I did not spend more sales effort on those customers than I did on my $100/year customers. I say this as evidence that $1000/year is below the "high touch sales" threshold.
  - rythie 13y ago
    I mostly thinking you'd go to big companies with something at the $100k/year level for membership - including some influence in project direction, code review methods, audits, features etc. Selling something online, could work but the question is what do they get for their money? a t-shirt, name on website etc. Though in a world of kickstarter it could work if done right. This is a $50/yr deal for most which is 20k people to get to that same $100k with a lot more community work to keep up with those people.
    - lsc 13y ago
      my main point here is that there is space between $50 and $100,000. Assuming OpenSSL doesn't have infrastructure, my suggestion is that they try to charge as much as they can and still stay under the level where you need sales. $1000, from experience, is below the level where you need per-user sales. >Selling something online, could work but the question is what do they get for their money? a t-shirt, name on website etc. Though in a world of kickstarter it could work if done right. This is a $50/yr deal for most which is 20k people to get to that same $100k with a lot more community work to keep up with those people. http://www.netbsd.org/donations http://www.netbsd.org/donations http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors http://mirrors.centos.org/sponsors/ http://mirrors.centos.org/sponsors/ I would suggest that for corporate sponsors, you make it more clear than Theo does that you are buying advertising, not donating money. I think selling a "I helped pay for software you use" website badge is a good way of doing that... but look at the mirrors.centos.org sponsors page. You are very clearly buying advertising space, in that case. Heck, the CAs charge a lot of money for badges that mean nothing; The OpenSSL people could create a similar badge. "OpenSSL developer club auxiliary" or something.

by lsc 13y ago

logicallee 13y ago

The problem isn't a lack of >I'll take the grand out of my advertising budget and it's all above-board tax wise for me, and the paperwork is easy. I've bought advertising before. It's a lack of, >I'll call up and close 800 businesses for you and keep track of invoicing them. As well as do product management on getting something together that is something they can support. I don't need any resources.

lsc 13y ago
At this level, I wouldn't call anyone. In my experience, the best publicity is news stories written by other people. Many years ago, when I was the best ram per dollar deal around, a blogger's benchmark that made the reddit and hn front pages took my business from almost nothing to "I can quit my dayjob" money in a very short period of time. I bet if the OpenSSL folks announced this soonish, the sales work would be done by the media. In fact, I think this is the big advantage of the low-dollar small-business accounts. You can say "here is the deal, take it or leave it" and wait for people to take it. For the big corporate deals, you have to meet and call and actually sell. And for invoicing at this scale, use cashflow accounting. The sale closes when you receive payment. There will be some work matching up checks to logos, but at $1000 a pop, the 5% of customers who don't write the account identifier on the check are worth tracking down. You do need to do accounting, but you need to do accounting at the current $2000/year level, too. I don't think they are committing themselves to all that much extra work if they only get a few buyers. I have... intimate experience with the "I got too many customers before I had sufficient automation" problem... and yeah, it is a problem when you have $50/yr customers. It is not a problem, I think, when your smallest customers are $1000/yr.

rythie 13y ago

The purchasing department is the last place you'd want to call - purchasing is department people in the org. go through to buy things, not the other way around. You'd either want to talk to some senior in IT security or anyone above them, upto including the CTO or someone in risk management/liability. Doing sales to those people is most likely expensive, probably costing $10k+ per client which would be the cost of someone going to networking events, visiting prospects, presentations, documents etc. In my experience paying yearly is much preferred to paying monthly in large orgs. due to the process that has to be gone through to purchase something (Longer than a year can cause budgeting problems).

lsc 13y ago
>You'd either want to talk to some senior in IT security or anyone above them, upto including the CTO or someone in risk management/liability. Doing sales to those people is most likely expensive, probably costing $10k+ per client which would be the cost of someone going to networking events, visiting prospects, presentations, documents etc. This is why I'm suggesting something that can be sold online, at a price point that doesn't require per-customer sales effort. I don't have many $1000 per year customers, but I have a few; and I have a fair number of $500+ per year customers. I did not spend more sales effort on those customers than I did on my $100/year customers. I say this as evidence that $1000/year is below the "high touch sales" threshold.
- rythie 13y ago
  I mostly thinking you'd go to big companies with something at the $100k/year level for membership - including some influence in project direction, code review methods, audits, features etc. Selling something online, could work but the question is what do they get for their money? a t-shirt, name on website etc. Though in a world of kickstarter it could work if done right. This is a $50/yr deal for most which is 20k people to get to that same $100k with a lot more community work to keep up with those people.
  - lsc 13y ago
    my main point here is that there is space between $50 and $100,000. Assuming OpenSSL doesn't have infrastructure, my suggestion is that they try to charge as much as they can and still stay under the level where you need sales. $1000, from experience, is below the level where you need per-user sales. >Selling something online, could work but the question is what do they get for their money? a t-shirt, name on website etc. Though in a world of kickstarter it could work if done right. This is a $50/yr deal for most which is 20k people to get to that same $100k with a lot more community work to keep up with those people. http://www.netbsd.org/donations http://www.netbsd.org/donations http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html http://www.openbsd.org/donations.html https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors http://mirrors.centos.org/sponsors/ http://mirrors.centos.org/sponsors/ I would suggest that for corporate sponsors, you make it more clear than Theo does that you are buying advertising, not donating money. I think selling a "I helped pay for software you use" website badge is a good way of doing that... but look at the mirrors.centos.org sponsors page. You are very clearly buying advertising space, in that case. Heck, the CAs charge a lot of money for badges that mean nothing; The OpenSSL people could create a similar badge. "OpenSSL developer club auxiliary" or something.