Your Tech Startup Should Already be Elephant Fishing

No doubt you’ve heard the terms “elephant hunting” and “fishing for whales.” It’s shorthand for going after big sales targets, prospects that represent significant revenue and opportunity. I don’t really like these metaphors so I prefer the non-sensical and less evocative “elephant fishing.”

Too many tech startups wait too long to go after their biggest sales opportunities. They worry the product isn’t ready, the procurement/ selling process is too difficult or simply, that they’ll be told “no, thank you…” Founders can struggle with imposter syndrome. This is when someone doesn’t believe they are really capable or qualified to do what they are doing. That they’ve somehow fooled their investors, employees and friends into thinking they are something they aren’t- that the product isn’t particularly good. Certainly, this can lead to delaying the pursuit of their biggest business development opportunities.

It’s understandable, of course, to debate the right time to start approaching those large prospects. I wouldn’t advocate going to the top of your sales target list the day after receiving your LLC documentation from the Secretary of State. The product needs to be ready to be sold. The value proposition of that product must be clear and undeniable. Any sooner than that and you’re likely wasting your time.

There is, however, the other side of this debate. If Winston Churchill was correct, that “perfect is the enemy of progress,” the idea that a product is ever “done” or “ready” will surely lead to grinding, halted business development efforts. Founders worry that they don’t have the staff or processes to support large customers- that their demand for day-to-day support will overwhelm the organization. That’s probably true but what’s the alternative? To be overstaffed, comfortable and bleeding capital?

Most successful founders will tell you they felt like their hair was on fire every day, for weeks on end as they started to really grow the business. Elephant Fishing requires founders and startup teams to bet on themselves- to believe that whatever happens, they will figure it out and be successful in the process.

Here are a couple of things to consider:

1. Enterprise sales take a long time. Your product, human resources and processes will continue to get better while you’re just trying to get deals closed over the inevitably long sales process. Don’t discount how fast you can move when you have no choice.
2. More large companies are open to working with startups than ever before. In fact, many of them task whole “innovation” departments with finding outsourced solutions to problems they can’t solve internally.
3. Procurement sucks- especially when it’s one of these Satan-spawned automated software processes. But there are only a few major players in that space and most offer an export function for your responses so once you grind through one of these, you probably have 80% of what you’ll need for future procurement requests. Even when it’s not automated, you’ll be surprised how many of these companies ask the same questions or require the same qualifications
4. Enterprise customers have an exponential impact on future business development efforts. Large companies like social proof- seeing peers using your tech as validation they should consider it as well. Most large companies don’t want to be first but none of them want to be last in adopting valuable technology.

Could you be too early in approaching large organizations? Of course. The problem comes when you continue to convince yourself you’re never quite ready. In my experience, most tech startups wait too long to start developing their larger opportunities. Startups breakthrough when a founder gets that first big sale, proving to themselves they’re no imposter and their product is definitely ready for elephants and whales.