| I would recommend getting out of the 'Microsoft burning bridges' mentality. I don't think it can help you in the long run. As a start-up we get completely focused on what we're doing and how much energy it takes. I'm sure there are times you've messed up a contact, didn't get back to somebody, transfered to a partner who didn't respond, etc. Now put yourself in their shoes. They have 100x more people trying to get their attention. Sometimes we don't realize that these larger companies with multiple levels of bureaucracy. At the same time, it was very smart of you not to give them our source code without a contract. A 'they burned us' mentality won't help you in the long run. You just happened to make a contact at Microsoft and it didn't work out this time. If I were you I'd send them a 'thanks, we're here if you need us' response. They just qualified your market if it wasn't already done. As mentioned by Zacharycohn, LinkedIn is likely the best resource for finding contacts. I'd recommend adding your Microsoft contacts to your linkedIn contacts. That way people may be able to find in association with that Microsoft group, and you seem to be that much closer. One last thing, doing anything with the big dogs is likely going to take time. I hope you aren't putting all your eggs in one big basket. I think it often helps a bigger company take the plunge if a moderately sized one has done it already. Is anybody already using your service? Is there a start-up you could work with that might give you an added bit of publicity? Best of luck,
Pete |