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by dewey 731 days ago
Most businesses are not big enterprises that need a programming layer. You can focus on that later on when you actually found some traction and move up-market. I don't think starting with enterprise features is "DOA", it's just smart prioritization.

You don't want to go through enterprise sales cycles when you are just starting your company.
3 comments
cfiggers 731 days ago
> Most businesses are not big enterprises that need a programming layer.

Your assumption is that having a programming layer in a CRM is only for big businesses. But that's not true at all.

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lelanthran 730 days ago
> Your assumption is that having a programming layer in a CRM is only for big businesses. But that's not true at all.

I read it to mean that "A programming layer in a CRM is only for those businesses that can afford a programmer", which, TBH, are only big businesses.

Which is why small companies may not be able to afford making Salesforce fir their needs exactly - the cost to hire consultants to come in and panel-beat the system to fit is higher than the cost of continuing with spreadsheets.

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cfiggers 730 days ago
> "A programming layer in a CRM is only for those businesses that can afford a programmer", which, TBH, are only big businesses.

That just is not the case. My first job was working as a solo Salesforce admin/dev for a company of < 150 employees and we made extensive and valuable use of the Apex layer.

Your assumptions are inaccurate, and that is leading you to inaccurate conclusions.

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andyferris 731 days ago
Right - presumably the target market are people wanting something other than Excel or Google Sheets, which they likely already use programmatically not just for data entry. Is that right?
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shortrounddev2 731 days ago
I've worked with big and small businesses that use salesforce and they all have some kind of programming layer. Small businesses tend to buy plugins or pay some contracting firm to write customizations.
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rtpg 729 days ago
> You don't want to go through enterprise sales cycles when you are just starting your company.

There's definitely a gradient here. If you are good at juggling sales cycles, you can close "small enterprise" deals. And if you have a good programming layer, instead of going through a full dev process for each thing, you get "integrators" working on things.

The advantage here: once the design is done, you're writing a handful of 10-line scripts. You can have a design meeting, have a person sit down for an hour, and ship out a thing that closes a deal. And the design can be done for _just_ the company's needs instead of a full flow. You can charge an "integration fee" to the customer in this case as well.

A programming layer lets you remove a huge level of tension that comes with B2B sales: juggling specific client needs with your product needs.

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