> Enterprises buy what other enterprises have already approved.<p>I understand why vendors believe this. But I had my share of purchasing discussions when I worked in Enterprise IT, and this was a factor in our decision-making literally zero times.<p>But we never told the sale guys that when they put a bunch of logos into a presentation. We smiled and nodded at all the crap they threw at us, and then promptly ignored 80% of it and discussed the 20% that really mattered behind closed doors once the sales guys had gone home. And most of the time, it was an analysis of many factors, including how well their capabilities matches our needs, whether their pricing was cheaper than the "build" option with internal talent, and how low-maintenance it would be. We loved buying solutions that affordably provided direct solutions to business needs that did not impact the work of IT department at all. That is why SaaS has taken over, BTW... not because the solutions are better that what could be built internally, but because it lets the internal IT shop just get rid of one problem, so they can spend their time on other problems.<p>That is truly how to hit product/market fit for an Enterprise product. Just make a problem disappear for the IT folks, and they'll buy.
At my startup [0] it's still early days, but we're trying to use the Superhuman "engine" [1] for testing PMF. Basically this is a survey where you ask your users how disappointed they'd be if they couldn't use your product anymore, and if enough say "very disappointed", then you're on to something. By no means is it the only/best measure of PMF, but it's a data point.<p>0: <a href="https://kitemaker.co" rel="nofollow">https://kitemaker.co</a><p>1: <a href="https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/" rel="nofollow">https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine...</a>
Help me understand what strategies you used to get response from potential customers? I can't even get people respond to me. Reddit and forum bans surveys. Folks joining communities rarely respond to PM. How can I see product-market fit then?
I like the idea of asking for payment during prototype demonstration, and watching how the surprise plays out (an idea I saw somewhere in one of the links in this article), but I could see it being fairly risky. Are there downsides to trying this that folks have experienced?