Breaking into the enterprise

I'll admit that I'm most comfortable dealing with the enterprise market. Sure it's slow, bureaucratic and in many cases unwilling to deal with startups ... but it's what I know. Let me share a few tips I've learned over the years:

1. Pre-sell - The biggest advantage of enterprise sales is the ability to engage and sell before you have a product. In fact it's almost expected, because every enterprise believes they have unique requirements.

2. Break it down - From the outside large organisations seem like monoliths. In reality they behave more like a community that a hierarchical organisation. This presents opportunities to sell in at a local level.

3. Partner up - Try to find a mid-size organisation who already deals with your target. Forget the likes of AWS, Oracle etc. - you want a smallish consultancy or systems integrator who also stands to benefit.

4. Target the devs - Ultimately you'll need to deal with procurement teams and "management" but they're unlikely to be your in house champions. Developers are far more likely to initially engage with you.

5. Intranet not internet - Enterprises are more likely to adopt a product for internal use than something that will be used by the public. It's a question of reputational risk.