Fuck the Fortune 500, It’s All About the Fortune 5,000,000 | Hacker News Reader

Fuck the Fortune 500, It’s All About the Fortune 5,000,000

quicksprout.com

25 pointswebtickle15 comments

I like Neil, but there was no reason to use "fuck" when "forget" would work just as well.

It's a syllable shorter and places emphasis on the statement?

"Forget that" versus "Fuck that", beyond adding a swear, adds some energy to the sentence, which isn't a bad thing. Mind you, this was stated more eloquently (and in 2005) by 37signals, who this post is rather paraphrasing, who put it as:

"Who cares about the Fortune 500? It’s time to care about the Fortune 5,000,000."

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/sidebusiness_software_the...

Nicer, also, because it doesn't use the obnoxious phrase "all about".

DHH's great talk at startup school also covers this: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/981-the-secret-to-making-mone...

I like the word "fuck"... it's catchy, and fun to use.

It also - wrong as it may be - causes your audience to make a judgement call. When you use it as a first word in your title, many people will conclude that your vocabulary is rather limited or you're going for some kind of shock value. In either case, this usually means your main thesis is weak.

Making judgement calls is something we all do, but if you are trying to convey a point you need to properly ensure focus is maintained on the topic itself and that your audience must confront the merits of the argument. Giving them an excuse to dismiss your argument will not help convey your point to as large a segment as possible, especially when all you are doing is re-hashing something straight out of 37Signals' book.

This sub-thread shows that in some degree, the author fails in this regard. It's something worth keeping in mind when it is your turn to convey a message, or sell a product.

One of my companies works with sports franchises--not Fortune 500, but pretty substantial operations. This really hit home for me:

"You’ll be a bitch – whether you end up getting paid a lot or a little from a big company, you’ll be their bitch. They’ll expect a lot from you, and in most cases you’ll end up doing more work than what was listed out in your contract."

Now, if you stand up for yourself from the get-go, you can avoid that last part most of the time. But certainly, you can be treated differently than larger operations. They get the benefit of dealing with decision-makers (me) instead of some lackey, and they will often take advantage of that.

(But...not only YMMV, but MyMMV. I've got clients who try to make me their bitch, and I've got clients who worship the ground I walk on.)

I think if your client relationship is something like "either I'm a bitch or the client is my bitch" then you have a ego issue.

Is it necessary to mention that some client relationships fall into neither category?

I was trying to imply that all should fall in bewteen (I.e. mutually beneficial)

Gross generalizations supported with no data and based only upon personal experience. Almost everything he said could be said about many businesses, both large and small.

The unnecessary and distracting profanity didn't help much either.

The problem this post neglects is distribution. Hunting and finding potential customers among 5,000,000 is a lot more difficult than among 500.

Seems to me that if you're solving a real problem for a real audience and put in the doing the market schlep, then it would be easy enough for you to reach your customers in the 5,000,000.

No one publishes a list of the Fortune 5,000,000. But having a convenient list of 500 companies published in a magazine once a year doesn't make them any more likely to pay attention to you anyway.

on the other hand, you have a lot more hit and miss with the small to medium business market, they're more likely to not pay at all or simply drop an entire project on a whim without having to have a reason that they can peddle to the committee in charge of the project, at the same time they're only a step removed from the general public attitude of "My cousin could make it for 800$, what can you add to the equation?" and tend to be far more budget sensitive than their larger counterparts.

That said, the article does make some good points.

What about the misses you get when working with Fortune 500 companies? Those misses can really hurt a company.

It's primarily about spreading the risk out to many more customers, so even if this happens in a few customers, it doesn't affect your core cash flow.

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