Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

the conversion from a trial to a sale for enterprise software is super low for two reasons: - software only really works when you commit to it by importing all your data and your daily workflow within it - no one wants to put that much effort in a trial

companies are also super paranoid about competitors getting a hold of your product and ripping the good features



It's only super low because people expect to sell to enterprises with relatively low-touch sales methods. If you want to sell to enterprise, with no prior customers, you need to be setting meetings with several stakeholders (engineering, financial, legal, infosec, upper-management if possible...) within that company, demonstrating to each how your software fits their specific burning need, and helping them adapt the evaluation instance to their specific needs until it becomes indispensable. In short, as a founder, you ought to be expecting to practically work out of your customer's offices, at least in the beginning of the sales process.

If the feedback you're getting from an enterprise sales meeting is "we need solution X which isn't part of your product," then either a) you're still doing market research or b) the enterprise is asking for something that doesn't fit your cost/benefit curves.


I worked for what is now a £10 million p/a turnover that didn't do this, so it really does depend on what you're selling.

They sold a document/project management system, extensible like salesforce that was generally used by the whole company.

AFAIK, they targeted CEOs and IT heads, but they targeted SMEs and gave up on larger customers because they believed it simply wasn't worth the effort for those customers, they just got mucked around too much and closing sales took far too long.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: