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Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

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Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#181

Post by kovacs_x »

yes and no.

yes, authority is usually with CFO or line managers, how/when and for how much things are APPROVED depending on the company and its policies and NO as it's developers that come and (authoritatively) say "We need you purchase this and that, because ..." and are the ones that evaluate tools and make such requests. Also there's big difference whether we're talking some sw for $100 one time payment or SaaS service for 100K/month, imo.

And then there's of course freelancers and well-off devs that buy things for themselves that make their decisions on their own.

tl;dr; if you think that devs dont have authority, maybe its you or your sales skills/strategy/methods that fail you more? ;)

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#182

Post by lchen_hn »

vinay_ys wrote: post #136

I've been a decision maker on $100M+ of engineering hardware/software/services spend per quarter and here's my perspective on this problem: 1. If you are making developer tools, make sure current/existing developers find it super useful and are strong advocates for your tool. 2. Make sure you don't tick any of the 'veto' boxes – there are a few – opaque contracts, lockins, data security/privacy challenges, sso/auth i…

Thanks so much for the list!

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#183

Post by ultrasaurus »

maccard wrote: post #55
VS1999 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does anything think setting up a system where you can get billed for clicking a link is a good idea? Along with no sensible monthly limit on the credit card. The whole setup is beyond ridiculous, and it's hard to believe this is how "devs having no purchase authority stories usually start".

I work in a small company and we use a few services that bill for active users, and sync with g suite. It reduces the overhead of admin for me significantly as it means I know we're only paying for people who use the service that month. > Along with no sensible monthly limit on the credit card. A £1000 limit doesn't stop you from generating a £10000 invoice. It just means you need to go higher with your tail between…

A $10,000 invoice also means that procurement gets involved on the buyer side and sales on the seller side.

Notion doesn't want 1 month of credit card spend tricked out of someone without purchasing authority, they want a site-wide deployment on an annual contract. The invoice is just a tool to ferret out who has authority to have the discussion; nobody expects it'll get paid as presented -- it's just the opening bid. Procurement's opening bid might be a chargeback and a org-wide ban on Notion -- and then you do sales dance.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#184

Post by dilyevsky »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #39

Selling dev-tools to devs is like selling toys to kids - you target the parents (or the paying CxOs in the company). One should learn from the likes of Slack, Postman, etc. -- make it the de-facto tools for the devs/users and make them happy, then they go and ask their parents/approvers to buy them.

That’s right you have to impress both the devs and the “parents” and they usually appreciate wildly different things. That’s why devtool space is hard

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#185

Post by maccard »

ultrasaurus wrote: post #183
maccard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a small company and we use a few services that bill for active users, and sync with g suite. It reduces the overhead of admin for me significantly as it means I know we're only paying for people who use the service that month. > Along with no sensible monthly limit on the credit card. A £1000 limit doesn't stop you from generating a £10000 invoice. It just means you need to go higher with your tail between…

A $10,000 invoice also means that procurement gets involved on the buyer side and sales on the seller side. Notion doesn't want 1 month of credit card spend tricked out of someone without purchasing authority, they want a site-wide deployment on an annual contract. The invoice is just a tool to ferret out who has authority to have the discussion; nobody expects it'll get paid as presented -- it's just the opening bid…

After the fact. That doesn't change thr E fact that a card with a $500 limit can generate a $10k invoice, which you need to go to your manager to tell them about.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#186

Post by Unfrozen0688 »

cjk2 wrote: post #78
elric wrote: post #25

I only had this issue the one time while I was an employee: I wanted a Thinkpad, but management insisted I got a shitty Dell. In the end, they got me a Thinkpad. Other than that, whenever I've asked for a book or some tool, I simply got it, even expensive split keyboards. Now that I'm self employed, I just buy what I need. Which isn't much, really. Very few "developer tools" are useful enough to spend money on, let a…

Corporate life... I got a shitty Dell. It broke. I got another shitty Dell. That broke. I got another shitty Dell. That broke. I got a shitty Dell. BUT WE ONLY HAVE A CONTRACT WITH DELL. Perhaps you shouldn't have a contract with Dell? Silence. Then the brain gets going. You realise the best bits of your life are when the Dell breaks because it takes 5 days for them to work out how to send a new one out through the l…

[dead]

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#187

Post by barryrandall »

Epa095 wrote: post #12

Unless you can put on azure/AWS/Google cloud. I can't buy a pencil without approval, but I can spend thousands in our cloud without asking anyone.

To be fair, that's only because nobody has figured out how to integrate "terraform apply" with SAP approval workflows.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#188

Post by ghnws »

baq wrote: post #173
ghnws wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current company just has a few HR type people that take care of purchases like that. I literally email them a link to hardware or software I need and they get it delivered to me. This is the best way I've seen it done. I don't have to know anything about the order/deliver process the company uses.

Until the first time your subscription fails to renew because the hr person was on vacation and nobody picked up their tasks for the duration.

Unlikely enough to not matter at all

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#189

Post by thrauat »

technofiend wrote: post #66
Epa095 wrote: post #12

Unless you can put on azure/AWS/Google cloud. I can't buy a pencil without approval, but I can spend thousands in our cloud without asking anyone.

Same and it's going to be a huge, uphill slog to get the right people to consider localstack. But if we purchase a corporate license the savings would instantly pay for it so I feel compelled to try even though it is isn't really my day job to do so.

You can buy LocalStack on the AWS market place if you want to hide it in your infra bill ;-)
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