“Startups Get Off The Ground Between 10 PM And 2 AM” – The Josh Hartwell Interview
on Mar 23, 2009 - 9:28 PM PSTThe full program
This is an audio program. Listen and/or download here.
A few lessons from this program
How can a startup sell to companies that are infinitely bigger?
That’s one of the lessons I asked Josh Hartwell to teach. Josh bootstrapped GOSUB60, which created Mobile Deluxe, a top 10 mobile game publishing company. He did it by convincing giants like AT&T and Sprint to work with him. Here’s an edited excerpt from the program.
Startups get off the ground between the hours of 10 and 2. That’s 10 PM to 2 AM.
That’s where you’ve done your full day of work–but then you have to hit it again. You have to do the additional research and find out who your target customers are, where they are, and how you can contact them.
And when you hit the dead end, you can’t stop!
That’s one of the things that my wife and co-worker Kelly brought to the table. Since she was already in sales, she knew that you don’t settle for the “no.” You don’t settle for the “Thanks, but we already have a dozen solitaires on our phones. We really aren’t interested in your tiny company.”
Those are the tough relationships to develop. I call those the “99 / 1 relationships.” As opposed to the 50 / 50 relationships.
You have your 50 / 50 relationships where the other party is half invested in the relationship. They’re getting something from the relationship from you.
Then you have your carrier relationships when you’re a tiny startup where they don’t care. It’s the 99 / 1 relationships. They’ve got at least 99 others. And so they care about you, about 1%. They don’t need you.
Those are the ones where you need to use your sales skills, use your diplomacy skills–and, diplomatically, not accept no, and not accept dead ends.
Your turn. Got any tips for selling to big companies? Share them in the comments.
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March 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Can't wait to listen to this one and see comments from other people who've done this… I'm trying to figure out how to get my products into clothing store and this sounds like it would help… :)
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Thanks Michael.
Let me know what you think after you've heard it.
March 24th, 2009 at 2:28 am
One quick tip is to call Human Resources to get access to the people in charge of important buying decisions. The people in HRM are not trained to screen out salespeople like other gatekeepers are, so I find they are much more helpful in a sales capacity. If the HR person does direct you to a gatekeeper, remember to ask the name of the gatekeeper so you can greet her with “Hi Karen, I need to speak to Mr. X” in a very casual way. This usually catches them offguard and they are often too embarassed to even ask where they know you from, and they forward your message on. I've gotten to speak to a lot of top level executives this way, basically starting from a cold call.
Another rule of thumb is to start from the top and go downward in a large corporation, meaning start with the highest level executive and work your way down the org chart.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:35 am
There were a few points that stood out from this interview for me:
1. Launch! Sell! “So as soon as you were able to sell software, that's when you guys became profitable.” Personally, this is the one I'm having the most struggle with. And it's becoming the advice I see most on the web from real business owners who have succeeded.
2. Figure out how to do it on someone else's dime. The first game they did was as a consultant so they figured out how to do it while getting paid to figure out how to do it.
3. Figured out where the market bottleneck is/was. For them (probably still is the situation) it was the carriers. Sounds like they lubricated that bottleneck with relationships and deals. Seth Godin calls this the dip.
March 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
That's a great idea.
HR tends to be nicer too.
March 24th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Your #2 point stood out for me too. Getting customers to fund their business
was smart.
In his interview, Mike Jones said the same thing.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:50 am
Andrew,
I think it was great that you insisted on the aspect of a family and the entrepreneurial balance. At times, it seems as though its one or the other; never the two hand in hand. From the interview, however, it seems as though Josh has a good balance and a good understanding of the making the time factor to make the balance work. Thanks for another great, helpful interview Andrew.
Salmiler
March 26th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks Salmiler.
I want to keep making these interviews practical. Since family is part
of our lives, I need to talk about it.
Glad Josh was willing to talk about it.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I came across another way of making contacts with key people on an npost blog post.
“You never know who you are going to meet when flying first-class. From the contacts alone it is well worth the cost.”
Might work for certain types of people, but I don't think it's the people I would be targeting.
Interesting idea though.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Like you said, doesn't work for all businesses. But maybe it'll spur an idea
for your business.
Thanks for the comment Francois!
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Andrew,
Thank you for this interview, especially the parts about how to have a title other than CEO and selling to larger companies.
I would like to hear more about what to do at trade shows. As Josh said, they were a critical in the early stages of his firm. For me, I wonder how to effectively approach the trade shows? For example, the World Expo in Shanghai is a year away. If I want my business to be ready, what would I need to have in place, and what should we be focusing on once there? Thank you,
Joseph
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
When I interviewed Jamie Siminoff, he said he and his team used trade shows
as an opportunity to hunt down reporters and tell them about their product,
PhoneTag. (http://blog.*mixergy*.com/get-excitement)
Hope that helps Joseph.
If there's anyone you think I can bring to Mixergy to talk more about trade
shows, let me know.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Andrew,
Yes, this is very helpful. Thank you.
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Andrew,
Thank you for this interview, especially the parts about how to have a title other than CEO and selling to larger companies.
I would like to hear more about what to do at trade shows. As Josh said, they were a critical in the early stages of his firm. For me, I wonder how to effectively approach the trade shows? For example, the World Expo in Shanghai is a year away. If I want my business to be ready, what would I need to have in place, and what should we be focusing on once there? Thank you,
Joseph
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 pm
When I interviewed Jamie Siminoff, he said he and his team used trade shows
as an opportunity to hunt down reporters and tell them about their product,
PhoneTag. (http://blog.*mixergy*.com/get-excitement)
Hope that helps Joseph.
If there's anyone you think I can bring to Mixergy to talk more about trade
shows, let me know.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Andrew,
Yes, this is very helpful. Thank you.