Pitched my idea, positive feedback, then no responds | Hacker News Reader

Pitched my idea, positive feedback, then no responds

10 pointshansselten16 comments

Hi,

I've pitched my idea to a company that works in the field my idea is aimed at. I was looking for a partnership. They were very positive and asked for my Skype to continue the discussion.

I've replied them 36 hours ago and still don't have a responds. Should I send another email?

Was it stupid of to not have them sign a NDA first?

Regards,

Hans (Netherlands)

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36 hours is a very short amount of time, certainly if you are dealing with a bigger company. They can need time for internal discussions and probably have other projects to work on too. Too soon to worry I would think!

Thanks!

Don't over think this-- back away now, ping them in a weeks time. Try once a week for a month, then move on. But don't ever convey that you are needy or desperate.

We've all had prospective partners and clients who gave great tonality in the initial conversations, only to go dark. Stuff happens, people get busy or lose interest.

Here's a good read by Oren Klaff on Pitching > http://pitchanything.com/book/

Thanks!

Emails get lost, most often in Junk Mail boxes.

When I don't hear back from someone within a reasonable time frame, I follow up with a short email asking if my previous email about this and that was received. If I do not get anything back either within a day or two, I call with exactly the same question: "I sent you an email about <subject> on <date> but have not heard back, so just want to make sure it found its way to your inbox". More often than you would think the person I called would either find my emails in their junk folder, do not find them at all, apologize for overlooking them, or apologize for not replying sooner. (And sometimes they would say they replied and I would find their replies in my junk folder.)

Thanks for the great advice. The thing is that I did get a positive responds on my first email saying that they wanted to send me a NDA en my email really got them thinking.

They also suggested a Skype meeting.

After this I send 2 emails without any reply. I'm going to wait for the weekend and then try contacting them again.

Sometimes entering discussions with a potential partner trigger an internally required process of due diligence. This means the company is required to go out and find other potential partners to compare against. While they may not find any, they are required to do this search in order to prove they are not giving preferential treatment to one supplier.

Just a maybe.

Thanks

Joint ventures can take forever to sort out as they are not their current business priority.

What would you think is the appropriate time to get in touch again? A week?

>Was it stupid of to not have them sign a NDA first?

No don't worry about it.

That's what I said to them when they suggested to send me a NDA. I don't really believe in NDA's.

Yes you should keep sending emails until you get the next meeting OR a no.

Most likely, they just got busy.

Send another email now. And then send one every 2-4 days.

After there positive responds where they asked for my Skype and said that they were willing to send me a NDA, I replied with both my Skype ID and told them to send the NDA over, and this is on Sunday. So on Monday I replied if they got my replay and it's Tuesday now.

I might sound a bit dramatic but I gave them a lot of info and and they might thought why do we need this kid.

Or because they can't sign an NDA without their lawyer looking at it and their lawyer doesn't like Mondays, or because your idea sounds like an interesting one for the next strategy meeting which just got postponed until November, or it's Bob's job to deal with that stuff and Bob's on holiday, or it's Bob's job to deal with that stuff and Bob doesn't particularly care for your idea. Or even, in an ideal world, because your idea sounds utterly amazing and they want to spend a lot of time discussing it internally but simply have other things going on right now, or want to research before calling you on Skype.

Trust me, it's often difficult enough to get a reply when the other company has a long term client relationship and is financially incentivised to reply on a particular date...

That doesn't mean they won't care to follow up with you at some point, and it doesn't mean don't chase at the end of the week if you haven't heard from them, but 36 hours is a very short time in business unless you're top of the list of priorities. And if you were their only priority then you should be more worried about where they'd get the money to support the partnership from ;-)

Best reply yet ;).

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