tech-company, pitch, sell, mvp1.5 years ago I started to work on my own project. Statistically, chances are better if you are in the heart of the industry, so I accepted an offer from one mid-sized startup (~ 1B private company) and moved to the the bay area (USA). Before moving to the US I did somewhat related work for a year as a contractor for a highly successful startup in Europe (this startup was valued around 200M in 3-4 years). Overall my professional experience is around 15 years in telecom/c++.
Once I described my personal project to the company owner/CEO and he asked me if I could do something similar to our company where I work as the company appears to be a heavy user of very similar services. I asked how much we spend on that and if I can know details and who to speak to and I was told that I can ask details from certain VPs (company spends over $200K/month, this number approximately doubles each year). It was obviously informal chat and this isn’t exactly the same as my startup project that I’m working on, though it’s closely related. I said I’ll see if I can apply my ideas.
Since that day I refocused my idea to better suit the company that I work for. I increased pace of my own project: I hired two people to help me with side projects (like dashboard website with stats etc), basically right after finishing a day at the office I go home and work a few hours on my own project + weekends.
The company uses top 5 providers simultaneously in IAAS field and now I’m looking for a way to join and become 6th provider. I identified a use case that wouldn’t require big changes and would instantly provide measurable product improvement. While working on this project I also identified and developed custom solutions that will cut the total monthly bill at least by half (e.g. over 100K/month). These ideas not only save money, they should also make product much better overall and these improvements might actually be more important that the monetary savings. When fully implemented my solution would become more PAAS than IAAS.
One-person companies have no chance to become service providers of this company for way less important/critical services and I know about cases where such companies were reject for simply being too small. My selling points are:
Technical excellence. I work for this company for almost a year. Not only I delivered what I was assigned, I did side projects on my own that boosted overall productivity of developers and CEO personally thanked me for doing that (I was actually surprised that he was aware that I was doing that side project).
In that startup in Europe I was doing pilots with high-risk clients. Basically, I was doing exactly what I want to do now: launch a pilot with a customer that’s not sure, but no matter what there must not be any service disruption.
I’m insider to the company (which might as well be an obstacle because of possible conflict of interests). To make it clear, as an employee I do totally different unrelated stuff at the company (C++ and 3D graphics, while my personal project is about networking and servers).
Points for rejecting my startup service company:
Potential conflict of interests as already mentioned.
If the service is launched they might be concerned that I’ll stop working for them as an employee and will be working instead on my startup to provide them with that service.
I’ll have a one on one meeting with a decision maker at the company and I’ll try to present my ideas and discuss possibility to launch a pilot. I know that guy is very good technically but I don’t know him personally (unlike CEO, but I decided not to go to CEO directly, even though if I were in his shoes I’d flip from such findings and potential benefits). However, these improvements (that save 100K/month) are double without my service that I’m building with intention to provide to them. If I fully describe what exactly I did they will be able to implement that on their own.
So, any pointers where my proposition might be weak? Any suggestions on how to approach that kind of conversation? What kind of answers should I be prepared to give?
Update: I had a conversation with CPO and my ideas/plans were well-received. They are ok if I do a pilot project and it’s clear from the start that I do that as an independent service provider (and if I can do better then existing ones then they will buy from me instead).
It is always tricky when you are an employee trying to sell to your existing company. I would look into Intellectual Property rights that you have in your contract. It could be argued that the company already own some or all of what you have been working on.
I have personally developed a service whist working somewhere that became my first client. I took employment in a completely different sector (no conflict of interest in working for them or a competitor).
Had I approached them as an employee it would have gone no where. But maybe the CEO where you work is different. After you have a good position on the IP. I can think of 3 options.
1) Leave their employment once the piece is ready and offer it to them upon your departure.
2) Go straight to the CEO and say I have personally developed this, it will save you X, however, I have done this in my own time and want to sell this through your company. You would want XX% of sales (don’t go for profit - go for sale value).
3) Go straight to the CEO and say that you love working there, but you have developed something really cool and that would really help them. You want them to have the first use of this and will get a substantial discount to be the first adopter. The CEO may ask about your long-term plans (it takes off and you leave) so have a think about this first.
Make sure that you have someone you respect validate what you have done before you go for it (always good to get a perspective before you risk all your income).
score: 3
They own the skills that you provided upon your hire and the agreed upon scope of work. Beyond that, especially work done off of company hours, the service you’re providing is of a greater value than your employment. A good manager would recognize the innovation and recommend a promotion and salary hike to win over the rights to your service. However, that would be seen as a win for him and not you.
Offer to work as a service provider. You will be your own boss, and make your own money. You can the adapt your model to fit other clients as long as they are “changed in a significant way.”
This exact scenario happened with my own technically based service I developed. I would recommend working for oneself.
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