Symend co-founder Hanif Joshaghani explains the psychological and political dynamics of selling innovative products to enterprise middle managers.
Insight
Joshaghani: Successful Founders Are Rarely Outsiders to Their Industry
“I've never, I've rarely met a successful entrepreneur that's not an expert in their field. Rarely.
Especially building it from scratch.”
Insight
Joshaghani: Executives gladly take discovery calls if you are not selling anything
“The people will talk to you if you're not asking, if you don't need to sell them something. You're not, there's no give. You know, people like, people especially would want to tell you, especially if it's their job, how smart they are, and what they do in thei…”
Insight
Joshaghani: Enterprise CEO Approval Only Buys Access to the Real Buyer
“Even if you go and sell it to the CEO of a massive company, let's say, and the guy loves it. He's not going to make a yes decision that his excitement is permission to go talk to your real buyer.
Who's an expert. So he'll hand it off to the guy. He says, I lik…”
Insight
Joshaghani: Founders need a designated contrarian to fight confirmation bias
“Find a sponsor for your idea, which is you, the founder, whoever, but then find someone on your team to take the opposite view.
And try to challenge the things that they're hearing.
entrepreneurs, I run, I'm the biggest guilty party in this, have happy years,…”
Disclosure
Joshaghani: Stop Offering Free Enterprise Pilots Once You Prove Results
“Once we had results with someone, The free pilots went away immediately, but when I had zero results with anyone, I viewed that first batch of people as, like, early adopters, but also almost like co-developers”
Insight
Joshaghani: Product-market fit requires effectiveness, not scalability or efficiency
“Product market fit doesn't need scalability, it doesn't need efficiency. What it needs is effectiveness, first and foremost, in my opinion.”