saasbuyer

Free product to get competitive bids before you buy SaaS, to get you a lower price.

I'm tired of people over-paying for software. When you want to buy new software, we will negotiate a lower price for you, for free.

I'm Ryan -- CEO and co-founder of Vendr.com (YCS19). Since YC, we've become one of the largest software buyers in the world ($2B+ spend processed; 15k+ transactions). But, here's what I don't understand -- why does a company like Vendr even need to exist?

Companies flock to us to buy software because they are fed up with "Contact Sales", opaque pricing, expiring discounts, and the games associated with sales. Buyers of software are rapidly opting out of sellers' sales processes, coming to Vendr, and asking us to do it for them. Sales is broken.

Today, sellers focus on creating sales processes that maximize the leverage and outcomes for the sellers. This creates friction resulting in avg 90 days sales cycles and 20-25% close rates for sellers. Not good. No wonder sales and marketing expense equals ~50% of revenue.

When Vendr's successful, we'll have fixed sales. No more games. Fair pricing, correct and fast buying decisions -- powered by data. This results in a win for the seller (lower cost acquisition; shorter sales cycles) and a win for the buyer (best products win; fair pricing).

LMK if you need help with any of the "contact us" pricing -- we can easily answer this for you. ryan@vendr.com

Thank you!!! Demo day pitch is next week, so that gives us a nice confidence boost!

We've observed the same. Even at bigger companies, the procurement team tends to focus on the most expensive/riskiest/sensitive vendors. That means that multi-millions dollar purchases are prioritized over $100k engineering SaaS purchases, for example.

We think that software buying needs to exist as an external function. There are too many products for internal teams to tackle this alone.

Today, we aren't built for 10-20 person companies, but it is definitely top of mind. We are working on productizing some of our knowledge to solve for this use case, but we aren't there yet.

In terms of non-SaaS, yes, we could handle those examples. But, we don't do your cable bill and things like that. Technology procurement, yes.

Great idea. We don't do reviews today but are considering integrations like Whistic, G2Crowd, and others. That would help stakeholders get evaluation information before they commit to buying.

Music to my ears! SHI and other resellers (like CDW) work for the supplier, not the buyer. That means that when you use SHI or CDW to buy software, you are likely paying list price. Or, you're at least paying more than you should.

Vendr works for the buyer and does not receive reseller commission. That means that we are strictly aligned to your price outcomes, not the supplier.

Yes, we are accumulating buying power as we sign on additional logos. However, that is not our north star. Instead of working towards supplier leverage, we are trying to find the equilibrium price for all enterprise software. That way, companies can buy software with confidence and certainty that they are paying a reasonable price. As long as "Contact Us for Enterprise Pricing" exists, pricing will be variable.

The vendors are the ones that share pricing information with us and we are under NDA with our customers. The reason that the vendors share the information is because companies have indicated that this is the way that they want to buy.

1. The subscription price is tied to headcount. If you're below 100 employees, we charge $2k per month and it scales up based on # of employees. We tied pricing to headcount because it is a solid indicator of quantity of products and total $ spend. At these levels, we are to maintain a positive ROI. I'm open to suggestions and improvements with the pricing model!

2. Our sweet-spot is SaaS but we are testing non-SaaS purchases. As an example, we recently helped one of our customers save a bunch of money on their SOC 2 audit fees. Do you have specific non-SaaS purchases in mind?

Also, within our customer base, there is significant overlap in products. Meaning, most companies use G-Suite, Slack, Sfx, and others. So, we've learned how to buy those products efficiently and have a good understanding of what it should cost. This saves everyone's time (including the salespersons).

Gain-share models are inherently biased, because you make more money as you save more money. This also leads to conflict with vendors, since the incentives are tied solely to financial outcomes.

We took a different approach. We charge a fixed subscription fee and we negotiate towards the outcomes of our customers, not our own.

Our stance is that our customers are great negotiators, they just don't have the time or interest to do it. So, if they were on the phone for the negotiation, they'd be saying the same thing that we are saying.

Yes-we have procured between customers. Most negotiations are rational (ie: the license count is growing, so it is reasonable to improve the price per license). However, there are also times when mutual customers have issues, are looking to churn, or downsell. In those scenarios, we play match-maker to the customer success Director or VP. That way, they can get involved early, in order to hopefully save the relationship.

Never charge by the hour, as it gives a ceiling to your potential earnings. Charge by the job/retainer/etc and then spend a lot of energy becoming more efficient.

If you’re in need of SaaS that does not have a “for startups” program, I’m happy to help buy it at a discount, for free (I make commission from the vendors): https://vendr.co/startups