Rodinhooders, as someone who runs an IT services organisation, especially sales, I’m aware of the importance of reaching out to other companies/startups (I’ll use these two terms interchangeably) who may want your services (or products, as the case may be). Having said that, I’m also aware of the fact that many people shy away from cold calling/emailing for multiple reasons, and the most commonly quoted reason is “everyone you reached out to did not have any use for your service/product”.
One of the best ways to not completely shoot in the dark is to figure out which startup got funded recently and approach them, for obvious reasons – they’ve got the money, and they need to get work done fast. The key to that is
- Get their contact information (email ID, more often than not)
- Getting through to them in a way that gets their attention (custom emailing or calling – bulk emails don’t work)
However, finding this information takes a lot of time – first, making a list of which companies got funded recently, and then figuring out the correct email IDs and geographical locations so that we can mail those folks, and at the right time. There are a few companies like Mattermark and Tracxn which charge upwards of USD 5000 per year for this data (apart from dashboards, apis etc, which are mostly of no use for SMEs), and USD 5000 is just beyond reach for most of the startups out there.
Now here are my questions to product/service founders and sales folks –
- If there’s a service which would give you the data as available(names, contact info, type of funding, value of funding etc), say in the form of an Excel sheet on a monthly basis (companies that got funded the previous month) at a much lesser cost, would you consider subscribing to it?
- If yes, how much would you be ready to pay for this information?
- Assuming you are ready to pay, are you ready to get into a small paid beta I’m going to run?
Aside: Is there something else apart from getting this data that is stopping you from reaching out to other startups for more business?
Narayanan(@narayananh on Twitter)
Gaurav Mishra
My inside sales team (3 folks) is using Clearbit to dig out emails and they build database including company details, revenue manually (largely using linkedin and other publicly available data). We usually focus on enterprises with 500+ million.
We haven’t had much success with *startups*, but then we haven’t contacted them just after funding as well. Would be interested in trying it out.
IMO, the value would be finding out companies which are getting funded (which I might get from Angel.co) and identifying the right person. Anything between 50-150 USD/mo would be a good price point.
Ravi Kumar
Hi,
I wouldn’t mind paying a success based fee, maybe 2-5% of sales generated through your service – otherwise, I’d rather spend the money on Google Adwords!
Cheers
Ravi
Charlie Robinson
I simply use crunchbase or Angelist to extract this information. There are bulk options to download for specific requirements and it suffices for my team to then cold email or cold call the respective individuals. In other words, I don’t need mattermark for where my startup is
Narayanan Hariharan
Gaurav: Thanks for your response. Perhaps the right kind of target market for this kind of a service.
My experience with startups has been that if you get in touch with them in a week or two of them getting funded (definitely not immediately), the chances of them responding “clearly” is better. In certain cases, the sales cycle is as short as two weeks, and some go up to two months.
I’m curious to understand why you would require companies that are getting funded – in my experience, their entire concentration is on getting that funding, they don’t have any money (to spare) and have no time to talk to anyone else; on the whole, talking to them has been futile.
The price range you’ve mentioned is what I had in mind, and I was thinking of a 150 USD for a 3 month beta to see how things work. Would you be interested in trying out?
Narayanan Hariharan
Hey Ravi, how’s DilSeBol doing? 🙂
BTW, this service is isn’t outsourcing your sales function, sorry if my writeup gave you that impression. The service basically enables your sales team to function more efficiently, and hence can’t work on a success based fee.
Narayanan Hariharan
This service is predominantly targeted at companies which have a dedicated sales team (2 or more), would I be right in assuming that your team isn’t there yet?
Also, while the bulk options may exist, they do not give you contact information, which takes quite a bit of effort to fish out (you seem to be doing that already, so you know the effort involved).
Ravi Kumar
DilSeBol is doing very well, thanks! Thanks for the clarification – maybe I have given you an idea of how to evolve your idea further!
Been a while – We must catch up for a beer soon!
Cheers
Narayanan Hariharan
Yes, a beer is long overdue. Next week?
The idea exists, and I know of a few people doing it already – two models exist, a flat fee per month where the service provider assists you in writing better sales emails, or a scenario where the service provider identifies a need and it is up to you to close the deal. In such cases, they work on a success based fee, and it is usually 10-15%, and not 2-3% as you’ve suggested 🙂
In any case, you still need a list of people who you can target 🙂
Gaurav Mishra
Thanks for the offer Hariharan. I am going to try it out with my current inside sales team using Angellist (or crunchbase). If this seem expensive internally, will reach out to you.
Narayanan Hariharan
Please do.
Abhik Prasad
Once a startup gets funded, I assume there will be a ‘mad rush’ of various service providers rushing to offer their services.
However, in B2B, in my experience, relationships matter and people like to do business with people they like and trust…And trust in relationships take time to build.
If you could somehow build a list of promising startups which are about to get funded say in the next 3 to 6 months, it might be more helpful.
All the best 🙂
Prateek Gupta
Outsourcing the sales function sounds exciting for me. I’m searching for such a service right now.
Aniruddha Nagodara
Hi its interesting ,how you give data ? I would like to get some sample for 10 companies ,what are detail u have only email or mobile landline etc?
Rajat Agrawal
Prateek, we are working with an IT services startup to do the sales part for them across India, Middle East, Africa, and South East Asian countries. If it doesn’t clash with your product (comtify, right?), we can talk.
Prateek Gupta
Hey Rajat, can you give me a call asap at 8447363077?
Abhishek Gehlot
Hi Mr. Rajat. Please contact me on 9899832274 / abhishek@weverify.in. Would like to discuss a few things about sales process outsourcing.