As a young startup speaking to customers for the first time, there are some questions that are best avoided. If you’re a team of three, for example, with a bank account just skating above overdraft territory, questions around company size or funding are generally best preempted by some skillful positioning.
This is especially true for startups selling to enterprise customers, who often expect a vast pool of resources from their vendors. When we started SevenRooms, a hospitality platform for restaurants, nightlife and hotels, we did everything we could to give the appearance that we were larger and more established than we were. It turns out, we were pretty good at it. Our big company aura enabled us to sign some serious enterprise deals early on, without navigating questions around our headcount or funding. Six years later, we can now call many of the largest names in hospitality our clients.
Here are some of the tactics that we recommend employing in the early days to give off that global conglomerate vibe:
