

Ask HN: Practical differences between B2C and B2B - dgunn

Title says it. I'm interested particularly in how to launch. With previous b2c stuff I've done, I launched as soon as I had something that didn't break constantly. It still broke often, but it would be usable and thus testable.  I'm now researching for a b2b idea I have. Should I have a more complete product to start with before drumming up clients. Will businesses lose interest more quickly if they see 500's occasionally. Or if the feature set seems slim at first?
======
ActVen
If you can find a test customer to work with you during your development, that
will put you in a much better place. B2B customers are sometimes open to this
type of arrangement if it is a non-critical function of their business. If you
strike the right balance between learning from them and tailoring the product
to them, you should get value out of the partnership. When your talking to
them you should always be able to effectively communicate how your product
helps them save money and/or time.

------
creativeone
B2B clients can tend to have more patience for errors if they believe the
software will provide them with some great value.

~~~
dgunn
Good to know. I'm actually planning on greatly improving on a service the co I
work for pays for. It breaks all the time and is really inconvenient. I just
thought my employer was an exception who was willing to accept garbage and pay
for it. I have a lot of work to do anyway because the minimum viable feature
set is comparatively larger than my previous projects so I suspect that
process will kill many bugs I'm concerned about naturally.

~~~
creativeone
Make sure that you stay in good contact with your early users when you have
the most bugs. They will typically understand and be patient. Those that stick
around will be your evangelists.

