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by tiffanyh 413 days ago
While the post has good points - you can't talk about this subject without defining what price points you're selling at.

A company will have radically different sales motions if they are selling a good/service costing:

  * < $5k 
  *   $5-50k
  *   $50-500k 
  *   $500k +
Seems to me this post is probably targeting the top 1 (or 2) bullets/segments.
2 comments

You always make great points. For my comments, I was mainly thinking of the <$50k range where I've worked most. I did do a b2g startup that failed in part because the motions are fucking nuts jfc. So to your point: sales motions should differ dramatically based on price point. For enterprise deals ($500k+), strategic outbound still makes perfect sense, tho I'd argue you should prime the market first with a brand awareness campaign.
Thank you for narrowing your claims, you might want to update your post at the top of the thread to call out your ADV/ACV assumption.

I appreciate all the experience and advice you’re offering on this thread! Take my feedback as a nitpick: as I was reading through your top post, my initial thought was “this isn’t true all the time” because I spent 6 years in 2 separate startups with significant and successful outbound sales where our ADV > $100k.

One company stayed private and profitable while driving revenue north of $80M/yr; and the other company sold enough long-term enterprise contracts to be acquired by a bigger $B company.

Context is king.

radically different?

I mean, aside from being comfortable with longer sales cycles and taking the time to build more advocates on the enterprise side, I haven't seen a substantial difference across this spectrum (<1K is very different). All are best when the relationship-building is first and foremost.