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Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

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Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#11

Post by saasbuyer »

koolba wrote: post #8

How much of the value provided here is by combining the custom offer information given to each of your customers into one pool to use as leverage against the individual suppliers? Also, wouldn't the customer sharing that pricing information with you violate some ( most? all? ) NDAs?

Yes, we are accumulating buying power as we sign on additional logos. However, that is not our north star. Instead of working towards supplier leverage, we are trying to find the equilibrium price for all enterprise software. That way, companies can buy software with confidence and certainty that they are paying a reasonable price. As long as "Contact Us for Enterprise Pricing" exists, pricing will be variable.

The vendors are the ones that share pricing information with us and we are under NDA with our customers. The reason that the vendors share the information is because companies have indicated that this is the way that they want to buy.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#12

Post by saasbuyer »

bit_4l wrote: post #10

Is that what SHI does? If yes, hope you can do better than them. As a product owner, I've been working with many resellers and most of time it's not worth it.

Music to my ears! SHI and other resellers (like CDW) work for the supplier, not the buyer. That means that when you use SHI or CDW to buy software, you are likely paying list price. Or, you're at least paying more than you should.

Vendr works for the buyer and does not receive reseller commission. That means that we are strictly aligned to your price outcomes, not the supplier.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#14

Post by saasbuyer »

eganist wrote: post #13

Nice. Vendor reviews too? Or do you integrate with other vendors who perform said reviews (e.g. Whistic)?

Great idea. We don't do reviews today but are considering integrations like Whistic, G2Crowd, and others. That would help stakeholders get evaluation information before they commit to buying.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#16

Post by codingdave »

saasbuyer wrote: post #9
codingdave wrote: post #7

A couple questions came to mind: 1) "ranges from $2k-10k+" -- What is the smallest company size for which you anticipate delivering a positive ROI on those fees vs. the time spent handling purchasing on their own? 2) Do you handle purchasing of non-SaaS software?

1. The subscription price is tied to headcount. If you're below 100 employees, we charge $2k per month and it scales up based on # of employees. We tied pricing to headcount because it is a solid indicator of quantity of products and total $ spend. At these levels, we are to maintain a positive ROI. I'm open to suggestions and improvements with the pricing model! 2. Our sweet-spot is SaaS but we are testing non-SaaS…

Thanks for additional info.

As far as the pricing model, what you say makes sense for larger companies. I'm thinking of small companies, say 10-20 people. Big enough that they do have some purchasing pain, but not $2k/month worth of it. Setting a low price point for them might get growing companies on board early, becoming larger clients as they grew.

For non-SaaS, I didn't have anything specific in mind. I know that my teams have purchased, at various times, IDE licenses, "Pro" versions of various libraries and tool, and even licenses to run various servers that aren't free/open source. The catch in my mind is that if "procurement-as-a-service" covers all my bases, it may make sense. But if I need an internal procurement person anyway, the value prop of your service diminishes a bit.

I like the idea overall. I'm a believer in hiring for the core product, and outsourcing the rest, and this idea fits in nicely with that philosophy.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#17

Post by joe_lind »

fillskills wrote: post #15

This is awesome. Even at a small/mid size startup we struggled with buying software. Wasting so much time across the board from engineering, engineering management, analyst and finance. Brillaint pain point to solve.

This is exactly why I joined Vendr. I've been in CTO/tech leadership roles at quite a few companies now, and have never particularly enjoyed having to negotiate with sales people. It always seemed like it was a timesink that was distracting me from building the best product/service/company that I could.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#18

Post by saasbuyer »

codingdave wrote: post #16
saasbuyer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The subscription price is tied to headcount. If you're below 100 employees, we charge $2k per month and it scales up based on # of employees. We tied pricing to headcount because it is a solid indicator of quantity of products and total $ spend. At these levels, we are to maintain a positive ROI. I'm open to suggestions and improvements with the pricing model! 2. Our sweet-spot is SaaS but we are testing non-SaaS…

Thanks for additional info. As far as the pricing model, what you say makes sense for larger companies. I'm thinking of small companies, say 10-20 people. Big enough that they do have some purchasing pain, but not $2k/month worth of it. Setting a low price point for them might get growing companies on board early, becoming larger clients as they grew. For non-SaaS, I didn't have anything specific in mind. I know that…

Today, we aren't built for 10-20 person companies, but it is definitely top of mind. We are working on productizing some of our knowledge to solve for this use case, but we aren't there yet.

In terms of non-SaaS, yes, we could handle those examples. But, we don't do your cable bill and things like that. Technology procurement, yes.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#19

Post by Benjammer »

Have you talked to any government agencies about using this for larger, public sector, software procurements? I've worked for a govt software vendor in the law enforcement space for a few years, and it's very difficult to actually sell anything real, because the clients don't understand anything and fall for every single marketing/sales tactic from the big vendors. If there were a technically knowledgable middle-man company involved, it would actually be a huge boon for my company because we could focus more resources on building good product that the middleman would understand is better for the client versus fighting the legacy vendors with big marketing budgets and very low engineering support/talent.

Re: Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

#20

Post by [deleted] »

Benjammer wrote: post #19

Have you talked to any government agencies about using this for larger, public sector, software procurements? I've worked for a govt software vendor in the law enforcement space for a few years, and it's very difficult to actually sell anything real, because the clients don't understand anything and fall for every single marketing/sales tactic from the big vendors. If there were a technically knowledgable middle-man…

[deleted]
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