SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase • Hacker News Board

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#131

Post by j2bax » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

QueensGambit wrote: post #130

mtnGoat wrote: post #83

Sounds more like certain purchasing departments need to modernize, not the other way around. IMHO. Not being able to use the right tools for the job, because some bean counters don't like complexity, is silly and shortsighted.

Our app costs $18 per month and one of our customers said she could buy only using a PO. So, I told her to use it for free till she finds a way to pay by card. We are likely to gain more by having an enthusiastic user, rather than losing her for the stupid purchasing department.

Could you just set up a recurring invoice via Stripe so that she doesn't feel like a freeloader?

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#132

Post by brianbreslin » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

I would love to see someone start Stripe for POs. I work at a University and navigating the bureaucracy just to pay for Asana was an utter shit show. Especially once the university procurement team learned ANOTHER department was paying for it, and suggested we just use their license... smh. In a similar vein, I often opt for yearly billing even not discounted just to not have to submit receipts and proof of purchases every month for the things we are allowed to purchase.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#133

Post by sscarduzio » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

I own a SaaS and 99% of our customers are huge international corporations. They only buy with PO, and every sale is a massive bureaucratic effort. I hired a freelance account manager to deal with incredible requirements like: - anti money laundering declarations - mandatory company stamp + hand written signatures - supplier enrollment forms (excel+macros) - notary apostilles for incorporation certificates sent across to Russia

Software resellers do this as a job, and I thought they are stupid middlemen nobody loves. Actually they are amazing.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#134

Post by titanomachy » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

numbsafari wrote: post #16

rweissgraeber wrote: post #10

Actually, AWS Marketplace is trying to do exactly this.

GCP has a similar capability. One thing that is kind of amusing was that I was able to find a price sheet in the AWS marketplace for GCP-owned Looker that isn't available anywhere else. Apparently the AWS solution not only works as a way to simplify your purchasing, it also works to produce better transparency in the market. I'm not sure the product mix in either case is necessarily what the OP was talking about, tho…

I dug for an example on Google Cloud and found this "Zenoss" product [1].

"Managed Services are fully hosted, managed, and supported by the service providers. Although you register with the service provider to use the service, Google handles all billing."

Seems to be exactly what the author describes. No idea what share of the subscription fee Google takes.

[1] https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/details/zenoss-...

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#135

Post by pc86 » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

j2bax wrote: post #131

QueensGambit wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our app costs $18 per month and one of our customers said she could buy only using a PO. So, I told her to use it for free till she finds a way to pay by card. We are likely to gain more by having an enthusiastic user, rather than losing her for the stupid purchasing department.

Could you just set up a recurring invoice via Stripe so that she doesn't feel like a freeloader?

She said she needs a PO.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#136

Post by dsr_ » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

QueensGambit wrote: post #130

mtnGoat wrote: post #83

Sounds more like certain purchasing departments need to modernize, not the other way around. IMHO. Not being able to use the right tools for the job, because some bean counters don't like complexity, is silly and shortsighted.

Our app costs $18 per month and one of our customers said she could buy only using a PO. So, I told her to use it for free till she finds a way to pay by card. We are likely to gain more by having an enthusiastic user, rather than losing her for the stupid purchasing department.

So sell her an enterprise subscription for $2500/year, with up to 10 logins, and take the PO. Now you have a year to figure out how to make that routine.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#137

Post by quanticle » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

alangibson wrote: post #93

mtnGoat wrote: post #83

Sounds more like certain purchasing departments need to modernize, not the other way around. IMHO. Not being able to use the right tools for the job, because some bean counters don't like complexity, is silly and shortsighted.

I've never heard a better plan for failure. "Hey $10B company, I'm gonna need you to modernize your purchasing department before we go any further."

I don't think it's a plan for failure at all. I think it's entirely within Atlassian's rights to consider these customers to be more trouble than they're worth and pursue customers who don't have such braindead internal processes.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#138

Post by QueensGambit » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #136

QueensGambit wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our app costs $18 per month and one of our customers said she could buy only using a PO. So, I told her to use it for free till she finds a way to pay by card. We are likely to gain more by having an enthusiastic user, rather than losing her for the stupid purchasing department.

So sell her an enterprise subscription for $2500/year, with up to 10 logins, and take the PO. Now you have a year to figure out how to make that routine.

Eventually, we should be able to do that. But, that would get into a long approval process right now.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#139

Post by JoshTriplett » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #115

GordonS wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Incredibly though, the same organisations will spend hundreds of man-hours quibbling over whether a dev team really needs a $20 app. Sometimes I really hate working for large companies!

Me: "John wants to use this $20 app" Manager: "Ok, schedule a meeting with the 3 of us and my boss to determine if it makes sense" Me: "The 4 of us talking about this for a half hour will cost the company $375." Manager: "..." [cut to inside the $375 meeting] Manager's Manager: "Things are tight, we just don't have the budget this year."

This is exactly why sensible companies have discretionary budgets at every level, ideally including individual employees. Below a certain threshold, it costs more to review than to just trust that people are asking for a reason; as long as there are controls and records in place to catch potential abuse or mistakes (e.g. paying for the same thing multiple times), approval requirements should be proportional to amount. On the off chance someone is being frivolous, it's still not worth imposing painful review processes on everyone.

An individual employee at a technical company should be able to spend $100-200/year with discretion (mouse, keyboard, utility program, cheap service, etc). (That's not counting whatever the company might allocate for people to get their own development systems, which some companies do.) A first-line manager should be able to approve more than that (e.g. a monitor, a more substantive service).

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#140

Post by mtnGoat » Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #84

mtnGoat wrote: post #83

Sounds more like certain purchasing departments need to modernize, not the other way around. IMHO. Not being able to use the right tools for the job, because some bean counters don't like complexity, is silly and shortsighted.

Yeah, telling your customers that they should modernize is a great way to let someone else sell to them.

If the means don't justify the ends, let my competition sell to them... Then it will be adding to their failure, not mine.

I do agree with your sentiment though, asking the customer to change is an uphill battle. I have customers with lots of custom billing situations, I loathe then all.