

Is your B2B startup New Enterprise or Old Enterprise? - brandonb
http://brandonb.cc/is-your-b2b-startup-new-enterprise-or-old-enterprise

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mindcrime
Our products are Open Source, but I think we're still more "old enterprise"
than "new enterprise" by the model presented early in the article. Yes, a
single individual can download and install the product for free, and yes we
want to try and eventually convert (some|most) of those users to purchases of
subscription - but that's not the main way we anticipate selling our stuff.
Why? Because the products are complex and will require a measure of top-down
support and adoption to provide the most value anyway (at least in most
organizations).

So even though we're Open Source (and I mean _real_ Open Source, as in "ALv2
license, open bug tracker, code on GitHub, open mailing lists, the whole
bit"), we still expect that direct sales through sales-people will be our
primary avenue to gain paying customers.

We're Fogbeam Labs - we provide software that helps people make better and
faster decisions by putting relevant knowledge at their fingertips.
[http://www.fogbeam.com](http://www.fogbeam.com)

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nwenzel
Fantastic post. Just saw an interview on TC talking about the two types of
sales. I'll reach out to you to chat. We're definitely top down, but we're
hoping to find ways to get our product in people's hands. We do the free trial
and super easy sign-up, but we know that a sale always comes down to shaking
hands in-person.

We're SimpleLegal. We developed software that reads legal bills and figures
out what lawyers are actually doing. Simplelegal.com

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brandonb
I'm the OP, happy to answer any questions or chat with any B2B startup
founders out there!

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Synergyse
Interesting perspective on the enterprise space. Where do you think we are
positioned? Our product can be installed by anyone in the company, but
ultimately we end up talking to IT decision makers. www.synergyse.com

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brandonb
The way the site is written, it definitely looks like New Enterprise. But to
figure out what the right model is, I'd want to understand how your customers
prefer to buy the software. So far, are most of your customers coming from
individual employees who sign up, and then you talk to the IT decision-makers?
Or from trainings organized by IT?

I'm tempted to say the Yammer model might work if there's a viral component.
I.e., can an individual employee who uses Synergyse invite others, have it
spread through the organization, and then you can contact IT once a bunch of
people are already using you?

