How do you find your first (beta) enterprise customers/testers?

2yr ago

35 replies

Hi Makers! I'm working on a tool aimed at medium to large companies (100+ employees). My tool is still in its infancy and I'm looking for beta users in the enterprise world to test it and help us build. So my question is, how do you go about finding them when you are so early stage? What are your strategies? What's your pitch like?

Replies

Hussein Yahfoufi

Co-founder 👉 MoneyMinx.com

It really depends on your tool and who your target is at the company. Are you selling into the Sales team? Marketing? Tech? Finance? etc.. Once you figure that out are you able to find communities that they join? are they on LinkedIn? Where can you find them? Then you can think about joining those communities and adding value to the community and start making connections. Another way to handle B2B is via cold emails. Getting emails on the business side is easier than personal. You can find several tools out there that will help you get email addresses. Yet another option is to run ads on Google and LinkedIn or major blogs in the industry you are in.

Francisco Javier Martín Umpiérrez

@husseinyahfoufi Very useful tips but could you give examples of those tools to get email addresses?

Hussein Yahfoufi

Co-founder 👉 MoneyMinx.com

@new_user_b49303fb0b if you do a quick search on PH for find emails or on Google you will find plenty of examples. One I've used in the past is Hunter

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@new_user_b49303fb0b @husseinyahfoufi thank you for the really useful tips here 🙏

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

btw @husseinyahfoufi if you are curious about what I'm building I'd love to send you more info! You can contact me: sacha[at]meetinghero.ai

Caroline Chiari

🇫🇷🇺🇸👩🏼‍💻 Creator of Koupi.io

I'm still struggling to find mine, but the rule I love to keep me on track is the following: You never sell to companies, only people. A company never makes any decision, even though it seems like it. It's always the employees. So market to the employees, not the employer.

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@caroline_chiari I love that, I think you’re very right! btw if you are curious about what I'm building I'd love to send you more info! You can contact me: sacha[at]meetinghero.ai

Dmitry Derbenev

Creating AI products, not projects

I think it's one of the best questions that the founder could ask himself. Try to visit sectoral business events e.g. conferences and chat with people there. Good luck!

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@dmitry_derbenev great tip! How do you go about finding conferences in times of covid? I find that a lot of the business is fine face-to-face

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@dmitry_derbenev btw if you are curious about what I'm building I'd love to send you more info! You can contact me: sacha[at]meetinghero.ai

Dmitry Derbenev

Creating AI products, not projects

@sachanacar there are a lot of online events now, which is also a great way to start conversations with different people

Building https://www.jsonapi.co/

By building a product and roll-out for people to use it. We have launched our product, do share feedback, suggestions,

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@sanket_makhija simple. I get it 🤗

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@sanket_makhija btw if you are curious about what I'm building I'd love to send you more info! You can contact me: sacha[at]meetinghero.ai

Building https://www.jsonapi.co/

@sachanacar Sure, mail is on the way !!

Stan Rymkiewicz

GTM @ Chili Piper

I run a marketplace that connects startups with sales reps. It's pay-per-meeting model. So if the reps won't book you sales calal with good clients, you owe them nothing. Learn more here: orapa.co

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@stan_rymkiewicz thanks for sharing! Sounds very useful!

Founder at &facts

Really depends on the complexity of your tool. I have found products where you require their data, especially customer data to be most difficult due to security and GDPR concerns. To test it, try the following: 1. Establish who is the right person in those organisations who will be your ally. Who does your product benefit the most. By getting them on board, they will do the selling internally for you. 2. The above point links in with this... Find those target individuals - the right people in the right departments and get them to use it and provide you feedback. You don't need to sign up a whole organisation but by asking the right questions you can get a view of how certain organisations work and think. So when the time is right and you want to sign up the organisation, they can help you. 3. Maybe aim for younger and more agile companies. Adoption would be quicker and potentially less bureaucratic. I have worked for large organisations (in Financial Services) where company-wide decisions need to go through 'committees' and 'group's and decisions can take months - even if its to just trial something. If you can provide more information on your tool then I'm sure the PH community can provide you with some really good advice. Thanks

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@sa6 thank you! I’ve experienced the same first hand working for a large IT firm. My product needs IT admin approval (for a company-wise Zoom org) so definitely adds to the complexity

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@sa6 btw if you are curious about what I'm building I'd love to send you more info! You can contact me: sacha[at]meetinghero.ai

UI/UX Designer / Avid Drawer

Don't sell to companies, only people.

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@imanibrown4 very true 🤗

I build .NET apps for the past 11 years

Corporate hackathon is a good way. We get couple early customers (20k+ employees) this way and they basically funded my company by buying my product

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@xakpc that’s one of the best advices! Hadn’t thought about it!! Great idea!

Caroline Chiari

🇫🇷🇺🇸👩🏼‍💻 Creator of Koupi.io

@xakpc I'm not 100% sure I understand how it works in practice? You go to a corporate hackathon with your product, solve the problem, and they're like "wow! I love this, let me buy it!"?

I build .NET apps for the past 11 years

@caroline_chiari my story was something like this There were a Corporate hackathon and very early version of my product (built on another hackathon btw) We came to the hackathon and built a new prototype (based on our product ideas, not codebase) to solve a particular company problem in tight work with company experts. It was small and simple but it showed some potential. We won that hackathon and get invited to join a company (because most of the corporate hackathon is a hiring event, you know), but declined it because we were already incorporated. Then it was decided to try our product on a small scale, then on the entire company. The prototype was merged in the product, made it more mature and useful. The company churned after 4 years of using our product. We also land a couple more companies this way, one time even got a flight to Accor Hotels HQ in Paris to present our prototype (based on our product) to mngmt. Sadly it did not end with test run because our product was not too useful for them. But after some time, it becomes weird to come to hackathons with basically the same solution and build it again from scratch every time (you should build something new on hackathon), so I mostly join them for fun and for connections, and we moved to more major channel in our space - expo P.S. I'm sure that there is a lot of context missing and this story is not scalable at all and probably will not work in an online-only world, but this is the story.

Caroline Chiari

🇫🇷🇺🇸👩🏼‍💻 Creator of Koupi.io

@xakpc Great story! thank you very much for the clarification!

Entrepreneur and video strategist

You have to be scrappy and work your ass off. But here are a few tricks - 1. Remind larger company employees that it keeps them fresh to work with more nibble startups. They will be impressed with how quickly you get updates done because it takes them months and months. 2. Explicitly say you are looking for innovators. You need the people that love to get up and dance first: https://youtu.be/izP5n1SBEaI?t=43 And everyone loves to be called an innovator:)

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@fritzly what an awesome video analogy! Thanks for the tips, I can definitely relate and act on this

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@fritzly btw if you are curious about what I'm building I'd love to send you more info! You can contact me: sacha[at]meetinghero.ai

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

Wow I love this community! You all are giving such awesome tips! Please keep them coming 🙏👍

I just read this Stripe guide by Patrick McKenzie on finding your first 10 customers: https://stripe.com/en-ca/atlas/g.... The most inspiring part for me was: when reaching out don't take no response for an answer. The truth is that the people who you want as customers tend to be busy people. They often just see your email at the wrong time.

I make music 🎹, movies 🎬, & tech stuff 💾

@ben_johnston1 I can totally relate with this as I do it myself (working at a large firm)

Maker of jsonapi.co | Developer

1: Find the place where you want to sell your products. 2: Be ready with some Freemium models or minimal price. 3: Give excellent support 24*7 for your product. 4: If enterprise asking for 1 extra feature, give them 5 or 10. 5: Sell your product feature not product.

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