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We want to launch a Tinder for startups and salespeople
With our product LeaksID (that was the 4th Product of the Day here), we faced the problem of expansion. Our goal right now is to find salespeople worldwide from different industries who can make an intro about us and sell our solution. Each time all agencies tell us that they want a monthly fee without any fixed number of leads, but this scheme is too expensive for startups (for instance, yesterday we had a call with a group of guys who offered to sell LeaksID in Europe for $6600/m!!!). So we decided to make a side project and create a platform where startups will choose salespeople and salespeople will find interesting solutions for their portfolio. The main thing is that all collaborations will be without hiring and monthly fees; startups will pay only a commission on a closed deal to salespeople. What do you think about this idea? Right now, we are at the finish line with our MVP.
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Steve Procter
So you want to create a marketplace with startups on one side, and commission-only sales people on the other?
The concept of sales agents has been around for many years in non-tech circles - think of travelling sales people driving up and down the motorway to sell physical items to retailers. To bring this into the tech world is definitely something that would interest most startup founders - why wouldn't it ;-)
The issue you will have is finding sales people who will do it commission-only. Sure, there are a few. And on products worth $6600/month then you'd get amazing interest - heck, even I'd help you sell some of those!
But the big gap is Saas startups selling services for £40/month. I advise/mentor a number of B2B startup founders at this level, and whilst they would probably give up even 50% of this for say 12-24 months to a sales person, I am not sure of many sales people who are financially secure enough to live off future promised earnings of £20/month.
How would you support this end of the market? And I'd love to see what you've got for the MVP, because if you can make this fly then it's a winner!
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@steveprocter Steve, thank you very much for such a detailed comment. You are right that the main reason why salespeople don't want to work on a commission-only base is a lack of confidence and lack of evidence. On our platform, we plan to give a complete functionality to follow the progress. All agreements and activities will be logged. Right now we already can save all details and in case of a dispute share this info, but in the next releases we are planning to implement it in a dashboard, so startup will see what salespeople views their profile, connected, checked the sales kit, and all actions (like a signing of NDA, etc.) will be logged. Mostly we want to make a safe platform, especially for salespeople, so they can be sure that all agreements are fixed. They will see on their dashboard all made activities and discussed issues with each startup and can use them in any controversial situation.
@julia_demyanchuk a lack of confidence, etc wasn't really my point. Sales people need to pay the rent and eat like everybody else. They simply cannot survive in the low end Saas market on commission only. But what size/value product are you looking to focus on?
@steveprocter I understood, most likely, I did not fully tell about the conditions. We considered salesmen who already have employment, or they are running several projects, and our platform will be for them as an additional source of funds and expanding their portfolio. Completely different solutions can be offered on the site, for example, our solution is offered at a price of $ 150 per person per month, and the minimum number of users (licenses) is from 10 or more (can reach 1000 or more).
@julia_demyanchuk I really hope it works, because I would be a customer. But I still have a few doubts - please prove me wrong ;-)
I did also read this article earlier which is interesting about resellers: https://entrepreneurshandbook.co...
Let me know when it is ready.
@steveprocter Thank you! We will do our best to make our platform as much as useful and convenient for both sides. And thank you for the link, I will check it!
Hi Julia, I've sent you a connection request in LinkedIn, looking forward to your reply!
@n_shevelieva We launched today! We will really appreciate your support https://www.producthunt.com/post... 😃
It is a very interesting problem to solve. The pain is real.
I wonder though that for a product like this, one of the main challenges would be to achieve critical mass to make it worthwhile for both sides.
@nishith_shah We launched today! We will really appreciate your feedback https://www.producthunt.com/post... 😃
Sounds interesting and if executable would definitely be very useful. Curious to see how this plays out
@abhinav_unnam1 you can try it right now! We launched today! https://www.producthunt.com/post... 😃
Sounds really interesting, so how is it going now? I would like to join such a project. By the way, Tinder by itself didn't work for me, huh. But I have to say that tinder customer service is very professional and supportive no matter what.