The Fast Start, Slow Sale: Brandon Bruce on Business Development

Wes Schaeffer
July 06, 2018

How to launch and monetize a new idea fast

Stream below or right click here to download the episode.

UC Santa Barbara with co-founder
Built some websites
Found a gap in the market in 2011
- Salesforce.com
- Gmail was growing for businesses
- Wanted to work with Salesforce from within Gmail in one screen
Solo-founders can suffer from being alone
Co-founders can break up
They’ve been friends for 18 years so they can be open and honest with each other
- Helps in the startup world where you have to move fast
Ryan is in Irvine, CA but Brandon is in Knoxville, TN
- It was more affordable to scale being in Tennessee
Brandon reached out to each person he saw posting online that they wanted a better interface
- Emailed them
- Called them
They got 1,000 to sign up as beta testers and soon realized it was bigger than a free add-on
Got the first 500 paying customers
How to launch and monetize a new idea
Hit up friends and family for seed money
How to price your new software / solution
- Special offer for beta users
- Put a time frame on it
How to double your prices
Who to hire first
- Brought on two sales, marketing, and customer support first before Dreamforce
- Ryan was solo on the development side along with consultants
- Engineers were and are hard to find and keep
How to hire via referrals and recommendations
Be easy to meet with, especially in the beginning
- Most self-select out
How to originate and close an enterprise sale
What ads are working to grow sales today
- Leveraging LinkedIn, Gmail, and Outlook
How to structure your sales team for the SMB vs enterprise sale
The art of the slow sale

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