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5 Comments

Indie Hackers, what stops you from pursuing enterprise clients?

submitted this link to Icon for group Growth
Growth
on September 3, 2021
  1. 2

    I’ve danced the enterprise sales dance a couple times. A million pre-sale questions by non experts, security audit requirements, NDA contracts to sign before sales talks begin, endless other contracts and obligations, customer representatives that come and go, silence for months on end, calls with random groups of people, all sorts of shenanigans.

    It’s exhausting and IMHO not worth it when you don’t have a dedicated sales team.

    Separate from the sales misery it’s also worth considering if you even want to onboard a high profile customer like that as they could single handed determine the future of your product if you’re not careful.

  2. 2

    I’d say lack of go-to-market strategy. Entrepreneur sales can look scary from the outside but once you crack the code it’s extremely powerful and you can explore high margins (higher prices don’t spook them and sometimes can be perceive with good eyes as a legit business)

  3. 2

    I'd say that the amount of resources you have to put pre and post each deal is not possible for a 1-2 men show.
    When you get a support ticket from an enterprise customer you are expected to have a very short SLA.
    That is not even possible if you have another day-job.
    And it's very hard to compete with the marketing capabilities of competitors who does go on that market.
    So it's just easier to go for smaller companies or even other indie hackers.

    On top of that, as someone who worked in the Enterprise market, for me it wasn't fun at all.
    A lot more tedious work, a lot more working for one customer rather than for the vision of your product.

    1. 1

      Great points. 👍

  4. 2

    I dont come from an enterprise sales background, and dont have rich/connected advisors/investors/cofounders

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