Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

landshark.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 172 posts

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#151

Post by danieltillett »

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.

Or sell her a lifetime plan of size x that justifies the hassle of dealing with a PO.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#152

Post by thaeli »

pembrook wrote: post #106
GordonS wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works in the enterprise space, I fully agree with you. In every enterprise I've ever worked at, the purchasing process is a nightmare - it invariably takes months at best to purchase anything, and the bureaucracy, meetings and wasted time will cost you your soul. When you add up all the wasted man-hours it takes to purchase a $100 app, it will easily run to an order of magnitude more - at best . Once y…

This is why any smart Saas company is charging, at minimum, thousands of dollars per month for medium-large sized customers. They know the purchasing process will be the same headache regardless of whether the product costs $100/month or $10,000/month. If the company is large and the tool enables collaboration and time-saving, $10,000 is literally a rounding error for a company with 500+ employees in comparison to th…

I'm fortunate to work in an "enterprise" environment where managers have discretionary spending ability. A $50/month app doesn't require the huge purchasing process, just throw it on a company card and tell accounting what code to charge it to. Once you go over a certain threshold, the heavyweight purchasing process kicks in - but it's more justified when the dollar amounts are higher.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#153

Post by gizmodo59 »

Macha wrote: post #150
anhldbk wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does PO mean?

Purchase Order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_order More important than the PO form is the entire rest of the corporate purchasing process it entails. You send them a quote, they try haggle you down, they might make their internal team send the bid out to multiple vendors for quotes and try to play you all off against each other (and how well you meet the requirements for the actual end user is not a a part…

It’s called as master service agreement (MSA). Here is an example: https://www.contactually.com/platform/enterprise-master-serv...

The steps to complete a transaction at any Fortune 500 company are usually: NDA, proof of concept, MSA or short form MSA, PO.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#154

Post by mickdaisy »

darrmit wrote: post #34

The biggest obstacle to this is not necessarily technology, but the vastly different ways SaaS companies opt to go to market via reseller channels - or don't. Google and Microsoft have both had established reseller channels for a long time, but there are still major vendors who only recently (or still haven't..) established this. Slack is a great example - they only sell direct. And companies who use Slack have a ten…

Do you have a salesforce?

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#155

Post by PeterStuer »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #139
pembrook wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ofc you can buy it from the tiny discretionary budget. But to get to officially use it you will still have to get approval from IT, a process that will make the purchase shenanigans pale in comparison.

So every department builds up a hidden account and 'shadow IT'...

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#157

Post by dsr_ »

QueensGambit wrote: post #138
dsr_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Right now, you're getting 0 from the sale. You can afford to let them take months to pay you.

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#158

Post by sscarduzio »

golergka wrote: post #143
sscarduzio wrote: post #133

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…

Out of curiosity, what kind of SaaS is it?

It's not strictly a SaaS, but it's a subscription product based on an open core.

https://readonlyrest.com

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#159

Post by QueensGambit »

dsr_ wrote: post #157
QueensGambit wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Right now, you're getting 0 from the sale. You can afford to let them take months to pay you.

We have 800+ small businesses as customers. This one is from a large company who don't come in as inbound lead. Don't you think it is better to understand how to work with them rather than hitting a wall with their purchasing department?

Re: SaaS Needs a Single Point of Purchase

#160

Post by lazylizard »

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 pay for a $20/mth saas from my own cc n claim afterwards because they dont issue POs and finance doesnt have a cc.

one day I'll be late with the payments a few times so that we can start the discussion with some other vendor that will charge >100x but can issue POs.

Post reply on HN