Ask HN: How to determine legitmate enterprise features?
Besides 'support', I'm not sure what should offer to enterprise users. @patio11 says that I should charge more and have enterprise, but I don't know what big companies want in particular that the basic or premium plans don't cover (or, in truth, what you can get away selling to them).
Enterprise features always seem shrouded in a 'contact us' black box, and so there doesn't seem to be a de-facto solution as to what features should be offered. Granted ,there isn't a one-size-fits all anyway, but I'm sure there are generalities that can be picked up on.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 41.8 ms ] threadIf support is common amongst enterprise tiers, I'm sure there are some other things as well.
Generally speaking, think of it this way: I can buy from multiple vendors, some of which show up in some magic quadrant report which my CTO reads. Why would I pick your product instead?
The usual good reasons are that you can provide me with professional services to do the integration, educate users, participate in project delivery, etc, but essentially that you are able to somehow remove some degree of risk for me and the company. You will most likely need to show some evidence of compliance to best practices for security, data privacy and segregation.... well depends on what you product does and what company you are selling to, for sure, but think of the PCI and Data Protection Act's guidelines at a bare minimum even if not directly applicable.
Specifically around support, I will want to know what are your SLAs including MTTR, MTBF and availability to begin with, and then I expect you to sell me 2 or 3 support coverage contracts (bronze, silver, gold) and offer me a possibility to design my own (platinum) if I need better. See Google's GCE page for instance: https://cloud.google.com/support/
Hope this helps you somewhat, but without knowing more it will be hard for me to get into any more detail.
It's this sort of stuff I'm talking about: I've never even heard of an SLA or a support coverage contract (and apparently there are tiers of support?); things that enterprise users want and expect, but that aren't well-known to the common hacker.
Edit to add: even just googling patio11 SLA will give you links to some posts you'd probably find quite useful if you'd like more after reading the comments here!
Good to know he's written more about it.
(I'll caveat below by saying that when I talk about 'enterprise', we're talking about >500 employees and hundreds of millions in revenue annually.)
In many cases, they'll have their environment set up with standard *nix and Windows SOEs. You'll work with their admins to configure your software, and you'll direct them how to integrate it into their environment (DNS, etc). You'll need to think about backups, security, access management, and how all of this will integrate with their existing requirements.
Support arrangements differ, for example if you have an SQL DB underneath your software they might want it on their standard image, in which case you'll have to deploy and configure your software accordingly. Typically, they'll be responsible for the maintenance of the platforms, and you'll be the support for the software. No enterprise will simply deploy a VM image you hand to them (unless you're Oracle or MS).
You'll also have to provide other support materials, so their helpdesk can support their end-users.
As others have mentioned, you'll be agreeing to SLAs with them (eg a Priority 1 incident will need immediate phone support, P2 incidents need acknowledgement within 24 hours, and so on). You'll be issuing a yearly invoice most likely.
You'll have to agree to their standard IT services contract, and because you're a small vendor you probably won't get much say in the way of changes. Depending on how large your contract is (north of ~$50-100k perhaps?), you'll need to make sure you can comply with any of their insurance requirements (things like public liability, etc). You might also have to demonstrate financial stability, both historically, and into the future (with a business strategy, plans, etc)
TLDR: Enterprise companies can seem super hardcore about this if you're used to dealing with small shops.
What if the DB tier isn't standard SQL? Will that be a barrier? (I assume the receiving IT dept doesn't get involved until very late in/after the sales process, but presumably they could still put a wrench in things if they find the deployment too complex.)
- yearly invoices instead of monthly credit card charges
- thirdparty authentication (e.g. their LDAP/Active directory), or other user management, multi-user setups, ability for an admin to wipe all data of a employee that leaft
- on premises installation
- everything in their brand colors, even if it's an internal tool
Thank you!
- Single sign on (integrating authentication/authorization with other tools)
- Auditing (letting them track every action their users take)
- White-labeling (removing all your branding in exchange for theirs)
- Maintenance (charging additional ~20% of yearly invoice for bugfixes/support/integration assistance)
Source code escrow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow