I have a startup in the AI Agents domain, which is an extremely competitive space with 100s of similar products. However, we differentiate by focusing a bit more on enterprises, data compliance, PII encryption, and serverless / self-hosted setups. Because of this, we generally work closely with a client's tech team rather than their customer support team.
In May, we received an inbound inquiry from a multi-billion dollar company. Our first meeting went great. They loved our product, and we went ahead with multiple demos, signed NDAs etc.
Eventually, they evaluated our compliance. Our ISO 27001 certification was still in progress at the time, so they asked us to wait until it was finished. We worked very hard throughout the month of June and successfully got our certificate, complying with almost 220 items.
We reconnected in mid-July and they started testing. I gave them a lot of options, and we were continuously working on different versions of the product together. We kept this momentum going from July until mid-August.
Suddenly, from mid-August onward, their team's interest seemed to drop off randomly. They stopped responding to our emails and went completely quiet.
Later on, I reached out to a friend who works internally at that organization to see what happened. I found out that their CPO had recommended a different company, so the team migrated to them. Just like that, 5 to 6 months of my effort were wasted.
They haven't even officially informed me yet. My contact told me that because their volume of work is so high, they might have a demand for us in the future and want to keep us around as an option - but for now, they have gone with the CPO's seller.
What did I do wrong while closing this enterprise SaaS client?
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50336389
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