[sauldcosta]

Disagree. If managed correctly a large customer can help grow your startup in some great ways:

- cash to invest into growth, especially if you can derive a higher profit margin than average from the customer

- increased stability ("battle tested") in the eyes of other large companies

- pushes you to build a scalable and secure product earlier on

In my experience with Codevolve (where we prefer to work with multi billion dollar companies) I've found there is a balance between how much they need you vs how much they are willing to bend to your startup mold. If they want you enough, they'll concede certain points to you. Some important things to stick to your guns on are:

- included support (you want to provide as little as possible, and get paid for it as much as possible)

- non competes (you don't want them to get one, or at least not for very long)

- pricing (leave yourself room to grow the account, especially if you have a product that can be used across multiple departments, and you're just starting with one)

The best way I've found to do this so far has been to go "bottom-up": find a champion in the company who will actually use your product. They're much more likely to work with you than an exec.

[notacoward]

There's a problem with the word "customer" here. Sure, having a large customer - i.e. somebody who has paid or is paying you - is fantastic in all the ways you mention. Unfortunately, what the OP was really talking about was prospects. People who dangle hopes or promises of some huge future gain, but with the condition that you have to expend a great deal of your own resources and use up your own runway to collect, are not so beneficial. They're the Nigerian email scam of business strategy.

"Greetings, X. I have many millions of dollars I'd like to spend, and I'm willing to give you a share. To facilitate this, you need only devote 50% of your company to me for a year. Please start working on features Y and Z immediately, so that I can make you rich."

Yeeeeaaaahhhh, not so much.