Ask HN: What's the best way for startups to get product feedback from big corps?

[altshift]

At our startup, one of the things that's been really difficult is getting product feedback from larger companies/enterprises (who are the target audience for the things we're building). It's not even about making a sale or getting a commercial contract with them -- we just want to get signal that we are on the right track with solving their biggest problems.

How should we be doing this? We want to iterate quickly but the lack of feedback has been holding us back.

[PaulHoule]

It is probably best to look at this as a matter of talking to the right individuals. I've often bumped into the kind of individuals you seem to be looking for at conferences, meetups in NYC, etc.

My business partner from a while back also had very good luck prospecting this kind of person on LinkedIn and getting calls from them to discuss their needs, what they think about various products on the markets, etc. (Now only if we were that good at closing the deal!)

[altshift]

Thanks! We have tried this and have gotten some signal on what kind of problems they're dealing with. But it's been a struggle getting from them just talking to trying out our tools and giving real product feedback. I suppose it requires a much higher effort on their part, or perhaps they're worried we are just trying to sell them something, when ideally we just really want to improve our product at this stage.