Startups
When to ditch that nightmare customer (before they kill your startup)
Three million dollars. That’s the largest amount of money I’ve ever walked away from in terms of a customer contract that I decided we shouldn’t take.
It sucked. It was, at the time, more than half of the total amount of funds we had raised and it also represented just a shade more than the previous year’s revenue. It was a Fortune 500 company and the market leader in their industry. This was pocket money to them — which was part of the problem.
Good entrepreneurs spend a lot of time worrying about customers. We worry about the customers we have, the ones we don’t have, the ones we lost, and the ones we’re in danger of losing. We worry so much about where the next customer is going to come from that we never think twice about whether we should take on, or keep, a customer that’s more trouble than they’re worth.
As entrepreneurs, we need to be unflinchingly customer-first. We are the drivers, but the customers are holding the map. We should spend copious amounts of time listening, usually through data, to figure out our next move. We should know the risks when we go off-road, not only the setbacks that come with making the wrong choice, but the fact that we’ll hear about it from all sides until we right the ship.
-
Business6 days ago
Tesla’s new growth plan is centered around mysterious cheaper models
-
Business5 days ago
Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B, says it’s ‘ready’ to start developing drugs
-
Business6 days ago
UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection
-
Entertainment4 days ago
Summer Movie Preview: From ‘Alien’ and ‘Furiosa’ to ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’
-
Business5 days ago
Petlibro’s new smart refrigerated wet food feeder is what your cat deserves
-
Business4 days ago
How Rubrik’s IPO paid off big for Greylock VC Asheem Chandna
-
Entertainment3 days ago
What’s on the far side of the moon? Not darkness.
-
Business4 days ago
Thoma Bravo to take UK cybersecurity company Darktrace private in $5B deal