Last $4.95 and my macbook – My startup story

5 points by lastofit 7 years ago | 12 comments

Just got coffee from 711 $1.35 now sitting at a friends house thinking what to do. My startup is considered enterprise SaaS, I have done some 15 demos after months of cold calling. Every demo the clients were blown away because how many problems my software solves for them and saves them thousands. However, no one signed a contract yet every follow up they say next month.

End of the thread now, had to vacate my apartment ,repo guy is chasing to get my car.. What next should I give up and go get a job ? or keep living off YMCA and keep hustling.. feeling broken for the first time in the startup journey.

marenkay 7 years ago |

It seems like your product is quite disconnected from the clients you can reach.

You need a small scale, low entrance barrier version or even a free baby version.

Enterprise clients require months to convince or even years. Small companies are less invested and quick to try new tools.

You need multipliers and a 2nd source of income to make yourself stable and known in whatever scene your product is targeting.

Use Twitter to talk and connect with relevant people. It helps. FB and others or even SEO? Not worth it.

Was at the same spot last year, Noe sitting at six figures yearly instead of 50 bucks a year.

wyldfire 7 years ago |

> Every demo the clients were blown away because how many problems my software solves for them and saves them thousands. However, no one signed a contract yet every follow up they say next month.

I have no idea whether to tell you to give up or keep going.

If they were really blown away then maybe your product is good and you should keep going. But it sounds like if you want to keep going, you need more leads and more demos. I have zero experience in sales/marketing but I suspect you should be extremely pessimistic and assume some terribly low conversion rate. "Enterprise" sounds like larger businesses? Breaking into this market should be difficult. When I worked for a Fortune 500 company they were extremely reluctant to use any smaller companies as suppliers.

Also, success in career and business is often determined as much by connections/who you know as product/what you know.

Lots of guerilla marketing tactics out there, I'd bet. Start a blog about development challenges or sales challenges, speaking at meetups/conferences, talk to local chamber of commerce about local businesses that could benefit from enterprise SaaS (or offer to speak about your challenges, since you're a local business).

mtmail 7 years ago | |

Enterprise sales cycles are long. Apart from internal politics we've seen contacts go on holidays, switch departments, leave the company just to having to start the whole conversation again. The sourcing department might take weeks to get you into their system (we had to sign an anti-slavery regulation waiver once) and lastly the accounting department can take weeks, months, or even multiple reminders to then pay the bill.

Not to break your motivation, it's just reality, and an underfunded startup or bootstrapper will need a long breath and patience.

lastofit 7 years ago | | |

>Enterprise sales cycles are long Yeah thats what I am finding one of the clients is a hospital and my platform stands to save them couple of hundred thousands but still dragging feet..

davman 7 years ago |

Could you set up accounts for those clients, send the credentials to the people you demo'd to, and see if they start using the product? After they've used it for 2 weeks, call them again.

lastofit 7 years ago | |

Freemium model def works with my $100/month clients and I am shifting my focus to them because sales cycle is shorter. Shorter as in couple days.

wyldfire 7 years ago | |

Oh, yeah -- that's a good suggestion. Or freemium model.

kup0 7 years ago |

Is it possible you are pricing them out of considering it?

It seems difficult for especially large enterprise companies to take a step to pay more for something, even if it seems like it would save them money in the long run in saved time, efficiency, etc. They often move super slow, so them kicking the can down the road is pretty typical IMHO

Curious though if different pricing structure or some other enticement could be made to push a few over that line

rishirishi 7 years ago |

> Just got coffee from 711

Is 711's coffee any good? Always curious but reluctant to try.

On a more serious note, are you able to share more about the product, its pricing, and who you demoed to?

kup0 7 years ago | |

I know it's mostly OT, but I like 7/11's coffee, especially if it has been freshly brewed, so I'd recommend giving it a try

rishirishi 7 years ago | | |

I will give it try!

lastofit 7 years ago | |

I like it because you can get half french vanilla or any flavour and then add coffee to top it up.