Ask HN: First potential client basically said no

2 points·a_lifters_life··6 comments

They said no they wouldnt need my product, but theyd use my product in a different form.

How would you take this

One of two ways. First, they are just trying to be polite and tell you no without making it "no this sucks." Or, they could be genuinely interested in an alternate form.

Your job at this point is to probe further to understand. See if they will share what an alternate form would look like. Now you may find that it is so far afield of what you have currently developed that you are not interested in adapting. On the other hand you may discover a critical customer requirement that you would face over and over as you talk to prospects.

I'd interpret it roughly as "If your product looked/acted a little different we'd us it."

Ask them what they mean. Seems straight-forward. If it isn't, they're just letting you down nicely, if confusingly.

(FWIW, communication like this can be used both as a conversation starter, or killer. It's frustrating--people should just say what they mean. In fairness, they may not know what they mean, which gives you a potential opportunity.)

what if they also said: if you provide your solution + this - this other thing, i'd give you $xx-$xx/k per year?

Then I'd do the ROI calcs and see if it was worth it.

Call 30 more and get more data

In less terse terms, one person could be noise or they could be speaking truth. You can't know yet.

I recommend you call 30 more, because after 30 pitches you should get a sense of whether your hit rate is “low” or “about right” or “good” … also, it’s important to look at this from the long view. A business isn’t built on a single client (usually) so if you focus on your pace (how many pitches/week) and your hit rate, that can make the first few seem much less “do or die”

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