Asks HN: Solo founders-How to respond when customers ask how big is your company • Hacker News Board

Re: Asks HN: Solo founders-How to respond when customers ask how big is your company

#61

Post by syndicatedjelly » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

jqpabc123 wrote: post #60

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they want to dig any deeper, you're probably screwed and don't really have a chance at a sale anyway. Once again, is this true across the board? How about questions around data security, authentication, data storage and backups, privacy...those should have solid technical answers, not "my partners and I know what we're doing". I'd run for the hills if I couldn't get a solid answer for any of those things for imp…

Would you agree there's some middle ground between "I cannot tell a lie" and "I will do anything to make sure the company survives, including lying to customers"? Sure. But there isn't much middle ground between success and failure. Until your small startup is succeeding, you're just a failure in progress. And statistically, failure has the better odds --- probably due to a lot of half hearted attempts aimed at the m…

If the most substantive thing you can say involves fixating on the definitions of “success” and “failure”, then I overestimated how productive of a conversation this would be. Have a good day.

Re: Asks HN: Solo founders-How to respond when customers ask how big is your company

#62

Post by spr3zi » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 11:08 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #48

codegeek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never try to justify your pricing. The moment you go down that rabbit hole, there is no coming back. You will give 1 reason and they will continue to challenge it. Best way is to just say "It is company policy and I am afraid we cannot work around that. I am happy to discuss alternatives" and go from there.

I find that being a solopreneur (or just as CEO of a small startup), it's hard to invoke "company policy". You can say your board won't go for XYZ, but if your customer knows you own most of the company, that wouldn't fly either. Tips?

"Experience for previous clients shows that this is the best solution for everyone involved."

Re: Asks HN: Solo founders-How to respond when customers ask how big is your company

#63

Post by JohnFen » Tue, Oct 10, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #53

JohnFen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony being that the number of employees a company has is a poor proxy for answering that concern. I think that at most large companies I've worked for (including my current one), there have been projects that had a key employee that would cause the project to screech to a halt if they got hit by a bus.

A project or a running product that I'm paying for? For the purposes of discussion, I'll agree regardless. For every product I have ever bought, I'll gladly stick my head in the sand and assume the existing employees can take over in the event a person disappears. I can't do that if it's one person.

> A project or a running product that I'm paying for?

My apologies for being unclear. I was using the terms as synonyms of each other. Every product is a project.

> I'll gladly stick my head in the sand and assume the existing employees can take over in the event a person disappears.

My point is that this even in large companies, it's is far from unheard of that the entire product relies on a single individual's knowledge. If that individual were to go away, the product cannot be changed until someone else is able to come up to speed enough to replace that person. It's probably more likely to happen in a very small company, of course, but big or small, if it happens the effect is the same.

Re: Asks HN: Solo founders-How to respond when customers ask how big is your company

#64

Post by danielmarkbruce » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #63

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A project or a running product that I'm paying for? For the purposes of discussion, I'll agree regardless. For every product I have ever bought, I'll gladly stick my head in the sand and assume the existing employees can take over in the event a person disappears. I can't do that if it's one person.

> A project or a running product that I'm paying for? My apologies for being unclear. I was using the terms as synonyms of each other. Every product is a project. > I'll gladly stick my head in the sand and assume the existing employees can take over in the event a person disappears. My point is that this even in large companies, it's is far from unheard of that the entire product relies on a single individual's know…

Yep, agree with this last part. For whatever reason (including irrational ones) it just feels less "in your face risky" than choosing an outside vendor who is a single person.