Ask HN: Practical differences between B2C and B2B
Title says it. I'm interested particularly in how to launch. With previous b2c stuff I've done, I launched as soon as I had something that didn't break constantly. It still broke often, but it would be usable and thus testable. I'm now researching for a b2b idea I have. Should I have a more complete product to start with before drumming up clients. Will businesses lose interest more quickly if they see 500's occasionally. Or if the feature set seems slim at first?
4 comments
If you can find a test customer to work with you during your development, that will put you in a much better place. B2B customers are sometimes open to this type of arrangement if it is a non-critical function of their business. If you strike the right balance between learning from them and tailoring the product to them, you should get value out of the partnership. When your talking to them you should always be able to effectively communicate how your product helps them save money and/or time.
B2B clients can tend to have more patience for errors if they believe the software will provide them with some great value.
Good to know. I'm actually planning on greatly improving on a service the co I work for pays for. It breaks all the time and is really inconvenient. I just thought my employer was an exception who was willing to accept garbage and pay for it. I have a lot of work to do anyway because the minimum viable feature set is comparatively larger than my previous projects so I suspect that process will kill many bugs I'm concerned about naturally.
Make sure that you stay in good contact with your early users when you have the most bugs. They will typically understand and be patient. Those that stick around will be your evangelists.