I think sales are being approached in a good way, especially by my partners. I started contacting prospective clients by myself and got about 15% to 20% fast and positive responses to cold-emailing, which I'm told is a very good figure. But having those "hot" leads test my SaaS and finally go live is taking ages. Considering my pricing and according to some statistics I found online, my clients should make a decision within 2-3 weeks, whereas the times are now in the range of 3-4 months and getting longer.
As PG suggests in one of his essays, I'm "digging a hole that's narrow and deep". I'm targeting a few thousands companies worldwide. The business area they're in is fast-growing and fast-changing and I suspect that they might be wary of adopting innovative solutions because they don't have clear ideas about where their own business is heading. Some don't even seem to have clear ideas about the prices of their own services and products (I tested this hypothesis by offering a simple, free tool to help them model their costs, and the feedback has been clear and positive).
I wouldn't say there's a risk of regret: I'll certainly regret it. Presently, apart from my mental exhaustion, I'm in pretty good shape, both physically and financially, but I need to set limits and draw lines. One of my main worries is that I cannot figure out what's not working, why I cannot get more clients on board and why it's taking so much time for them to go live. I developed the app at blazing speed and now the sales are going so slowly that it looks like nothing is moving and I find that unbearable. Maybe I'm just missing some entrepreneurial skills? I wish I knew which ones. Right now, I would just like to get rid of the whole thing, as irrational as it may seem.
They're contributing in work, mainly sales and business development. Unfortunately I'm the only one who knows the whole codebase and it's not trivial to find someone to whom I can hand it over. I know other well-funded startups having the same kind of problems with finding skilled personnel.
The code contains proprietary algorithms that perform critical operations in a much shorter time than the competition. Before starting coding I did my homework and focused on those features that would have given me the best edge against competitors.
As PG suggests in one of his essays, I'm "digging a hole that's narrow and deep". I'm targeting a few thousands companies worldwide. The business area they're in is fast-growing and fast-changing and I suspect that they might be wary of adopting innovative solutions because they don't have clear ideas about where their own business is heading. Some don't even seem to have clear ideas about the prices of their own services and products (I tested this hypothesis by offering a simple, free tool to help them model their costs, and the feedback has been clear and positive).
I wouldn't say there's a risk of regret: I'll certainly regret it. Presently, apart from my mental exhaustion, I'm in pretty good shape, both physically and financially, but I need to set limits and draw lines. One of my main worries is that I cannot figure out what's not working, why I cannot get more clients on board and why it's taking so much time for them to go live. I developed the app at blazing speed and now the sales are going so slowly that it looks like nothing is moving and I find that unbearable. Maybe I'm just missing some entrepreneurial skills? I wish I knew which ones. Right now, I would just like to get rid of the whole thing, as irrational as it may seem.