My business idea might be more about sales than business itself and I don't like it.
In my day job, I create software for power station optimization (how to run a fleet of power stations such that you maximize the revenue). It is a great job to do. With every slight improvement, you can bring home millions of dollars every year. I have noticed that despite being so important many companies optimize them just using Excel and they are leaving money on the table.
I'm entertaining myself with an idea of easy to use software to get the benefits. There are competitors but I have my reasons to think that will not be a big problem for the business model itself.
Based on the knowledge from my day job I'm confident I can develop such a product. The problem (for me) is on the customer side. There are 1,000s or 10,000s of power stations around the world that can benefit from such a product. Commonly, one company runs many power stations. So let's say there are 100s of potential customers. Even if I capture only bigger 10s of those I can build a nice company of that as the added value of such a product is very high thus the price will be.
As I think more and more about the business it looks like there will three phases of the company:
1/ I get 2-6 customers and I develop the product together with them. (maybe a year)
2/ I continue to onboard more customers and polish the product. (again a year)
3/ There is not much to add to the product unless I add a related one. From now on it is just sales.
My concern is although I have done some sales before I have never really enjoyed it. Even worse as there is not a virtually infinite pool of customers every single lost sale is a big letdown for the business. I have seen other companies going for a golf and wine tasting with CEOs of their prospective customers. Only that they can sell then their software two years later. I know I wouldn't enjoy this. My company would likely turn into this in the third stage.
The options I see right now:
a/ Just deal with it.
b/ Get the customers I can comfortably reach and stay small afterward.
c/ Sell the company at the beginning of the third stage and move on.
d/ Hire a salesperson to do this.
Perhaps I'm missing a piece or is this really how are indie hackers delivering to large enterprises work? Do you see a way out? Maybe there are fellow indie hackers who faced similar issues and now they run successful companies. Do you know such?
Hey @tomas789, I think you should just look for a co-founder who can brink the B2B sales experience to the table. Since you already have a strong knowledge of the industry and are confident of your product building skills, double down on them and don't think you have to do everything on you own. My one recommendation for this would be to get someone you've worked with previously, don't try to hire some stranger for this as that strategy doesn't work very well in the long run.
Hope this helps!
@tomas789 great project!
Here's my take
At any point, when they answer, get them on the phone (or on the Zoom!) and ask questions, provide substance and interesting takeaways about the problem you solve. Put them somewhere in your Excel sheet as "qualified" or "not qualified" depending on the outcome and get back to them when your product is viable.
All the best!
This looks like you have some previous experience in such topic. If I actually go down this road this sounds like something I’ll try. My original question was more focused on the third stage. To see if that is the endgame I’m going for or there is a way I don’t see at the moment.