Comments on: Friday Q & A: Is It Worth Going to Conferences and Trade Shows, How to Get Your First Customers to Trust You, and How to Gather Customer Feedback

By: Steve Bailey

Steve Bailey — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 07:28:56 +0000

Nice Article Alex. You have a totally different point of view. Anyways, it was good read some different approaches that you have mentioned here.

It is really interesting to know about the other side of the coin. Regarding, trust gain of potential customers is really a challenginf task.

By: Olivier

Olivier — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 12:56:14 +0000

Hello Alex,

Together with a couple of fine young gentlemen I’ve started a SaaS-company. We’ve just landed our first big client (huge yay!) and thought we were ready to go.

Unfortunately, we’re stuck on the amount of license-fees. Partly because they’re financing a big part of the development costs for generic use and party because we’ve just started we don’t have a clear view of our expected costs and customers yet. Our problem is that if we ask too much they might not follow through after the first stages of development but if we ask to little we might not be able to handle our costs in the long run.

Do you have any advice on how to determine the right license fee in this stage? Maybe something in the form of an example or even an accountable formula?

Best regards, Olivier

By: Brian Krogsgard

Brian Krogsgard — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 15:39:59 +0000

It’s funny these are grouped, because I believe going to conferences (if you really engage at them) can be a great way to help answer questions 2 & 3!

By: John Steer-Fowler

John Steer-Fowler — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 15:41:22 +0000

Hi Alex,

If you could have given yourself a piece of knowledge or advice when you first started Groove, what would that be?

The idea of launching a SaaS company both excites me and is rather intimidating at the same time. At what point did you decide ‘Okay, I’m going to do this…’ and take the plunge?

Keep up the great blog posts!

By: MTBkelly

MTBkelly — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 15:31:22 +0000

I have a different take on conferences. I’ve owned a web dev and design agency for 16 years. For 15 of those years I could or would never justify going to conferences for the reasons you outline – time, cost … did I mention time?

But in the last year we’ve decided to shake up our business in a big way. We got way more in touch with the startup community and as result flew all the way to Prague (!) to attend MicroConf.

I can’t tell you how much it energized my partner and me. Meeting new people, feeding off their energy – it reenergized us. Actionable advice is abundantly available online but it’s a different mindset that being amongst your peers offers.

At any rate I’m making a commitment to go to one or two a year and get out the office.

For now, anyway.