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Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

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Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#21

Post by boris »

everfrustrated wrote: post #17

Devtools is a hard sell but not impossible. Unfortunately Hashicorp didn't even try. The reason selling devtools is hard is there's generally no established budget to sell into. I already have budget for various things - a vendor comes to me and tries to sell their product/tool/saas I'm looking what I can move around to afford it. If yours does a better job of something I'm already paying for, then it's the easiest s…

> Their pricing is either free or insane with little middle ground. I pleaded with a sales rep - I'm happy to stay on the free features but give you some money for "support" but they wouldn't take my money. Utter madness of a business model to turn down money.

It makes sense to turn down money if the administrative overhead of taking it will cost more. If I have to spend a couple of months negotiating a license/service agreement with your legal department and then chase your AP people for a couple months more to get my invoice paid, the the couple of $K you are willing to pay are not really worth it. And unfortunately that how things really work.

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#23

Post by secfirstmd »

everfrustrated wrote: post #17

Devtools is a hard sell but not impossible. Unfortunately Hashicorp didn't even try. The reason selling devtools is hard is there's generally no established budget to sell into. I already have budget for various things - a vendor comes to me and tries to sell their product/tool/saas I'm looking what I can move around to afford it. If yours does a better job of something I'm already paying for, then it's the easiest s…

Companies have moved off PagerDuty? To where?

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#24

Post by kgdiem »

boris wrote: post #21
everfrustrated wrote: post #17

Devtools is a hard sell but not impossible. Unfortunately Hashicorp didn't even try. The reason selling devtools is hard is there's generally no established budget to sell into. I already have budget for various things - a vendor comes to me and tries to sell their product/tool/saas I'm looking what I can move around to afford it. If yours does a better job of something I'm already paying for, then it's the easiest s…

> Their pricing is either free or insane with little middle ground. I pleaded with a sales rep - I'm happy to stay on the free features but give you some money for "support" but they wouldn't take my money. Utter madness of a business model to turn down money. It makes sense to turn down money if the administrative overhead of taking it will cost more. If I have to spend a couple of months negotiating a license/servi…

> And unfortunately that how things really work.

Yes, definitely. The cost to build out and maintain any middle ground solution must be unprofitable for the majority of business models.

Ultimately this creates opportunities for down-market service providers. Mid-large companies outsource support to contractors who will provide support for terraform in addition to 20 other things.

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#26

Post by alephnerd »

fgonzag wrote: post #13
nextworddev wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s simply impossible to make money selling to developers (in almost all scenarios)

Jetbrains seems to do OK. I pay for my subscription out of pocket.

They're able to pay East European salaries but land Enterprise deals in the US.

That's the main difference, as they had lower margins compared to Hashicorp which traditionally had most of their enfineeeing in the US.

Hashicorp has started pivoting hiring to Bulgaria, Poland, and India now for that reason.

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#27

Post by jgalt212 »

The tough sell for me is why would I want a product that makes it easier for me to manage and add even more overpriced cloud services. I have similar feelings on kubernetes. Without kubernetes, we have a strong incentive to keep the number of machines low (like Stack Overflow). I want to pay for something that makes my life easier and cheaper.

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#28

Post by quickgist »

everfrustrated wrote: post #17

Devtools is a hard sell but not impossible. Unfortunately Hashicorp didn't even try. The reason selling devtools is hard is there's generally no established budget to sell into. I already have budget for various things - a vendor comes to me and tries to sell their product/tool/saas I'm looking what I can move around to afford it. If yours does a better job of something I'm already paying for, then it's the easiest s…

As someone who is about to launch my SAAS, what are some of the things you look for, as someone with purchase authority?

What are the positives or negatives you see when dealing with vendors (i.e. what makes you lean towards or against dealing with a vendor)? I'm trying to figure out how I can make the process as easy as possible for exactly people in your position.

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#29

Post by kgdiem »

nodesocket wrote: post #14
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #2

After their disastrous license change and the reasons for it I figure their biggest Exit Plan would include being acquired. I made a couple of Option calls based on this. Monday could be good.

We shall see, my average cost is still down over 30% even with the after hours move up (facepalm). Hope to at least get back to even with an acquisition.

I’m down 40%. Is it typical to purchase that far above the current price?

Re: Software Company HashiCorp Is Weighing a Potential Sale

#30

Post by CurtMonash »

everfrustrated wrote: post #17

Devtools is a hard sell but not impossible. Unfortunately Hashicorp didn't even try. The reason selling devtools is hard is there's generally no established budget to sell into. I already have budget for various things - a vendor comes to me and tries to sell their product/tool/saas I'm looking what I can move around to afford it. If yours does a better job of something I'm already paying for, then it's the easiest s…

A standard problem with dev tools is that they're obsolete before they're ever mature.

What is mean is that by the time NewTool that fills a gap doing X really well catches up with the YZ that older tools have long experience handling, EvenNewerTool handles E better than NewTool does.

I don't have any knowledge of the specifics here, but at first guess I doubt something security-focused would be an exception to that rule.

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