Enterprise sales for startups is always a challenge and a necessity. 

A new product from a new company is likely to have an extended time to contract, as someone told me over coffee. A start-up has limited resources for trade marketing. Even with reliable distributors and partners, it pales in front of the formidable track record of more established products. Enterprises prefer to stay with existing brands-after all, no one gets fired for buying….well, you know.

All of the above are true. These truths are compounded further by the fact that the start-up has to worry about raising cash while it is selling. Sales is expensive and who is to say that the best salespeople will bet their careers on new concepts from impoverished newbies? And yet start-ups in the B2B space refuse to fail. Datadog, Docusign, MongoDB, Servicenow. Atlassian. Just a few names.

(Episode cover art-Helena Lopes on Unsplash, many thanks!!)