DISQUS

Ryan Graves · 11 months ago

Mark- I currently work at a Fortune 3 company but my passion is startups so I feel like I have a decent insight to how these two worlds could combine for a mutually beneficial relationship. Dealing with sales to huge companies like this is a dangerous world...I've witnessed first hand the bully mentality that corporations have coming to the table so it is important that startups attempt to move quickly and realize early on if there are real opportunities or if the corp is just dragging them along...

Good thoughts. I definitely agree that actually selling product vs. just getting eyeballs may be the only way to survive through this economy. I look forward to web entrepreneurs getting back traditional biz models...sell product, collect money, re-invest.

Take care.

Mark I LaRosa · 11 months ago

Ryan,

What a great comment. I neglected to elaborate on the fact that you can't let the enterprise bully you around. "Flexibility" as I talk about, does not mean, let them walk all over you. You need to understand your limits, but when you have identified a win-win, thats when you can allow for some flexibility.

I wrote a post on No Free Trials (http://www.quotacrush.com/index.php/2008/05/12/...) where I talk about one of the strategies that I used to get enterprises to commit.

Its a fine line... you want their money... but I agree, not at any cost.