Every company you are trying to sell to was once a startup and many of the products, services and relationships that your sales teams are competing with, especially for fundamental business requirements, were established in the earliest days of that enterprise. Established incumbency is the most powerful position on the field, and the more " business critical" a product or service is, the harder it is to displace the company that got there first.

Well apart from the obvious marketing gold of the term " Free", Seed stage companies have to be particularly careful with both their expenditure and the time it takes to evaluate and select suitable suppliers to work with. Being both cash strapped and time poor, the ease and cost of evaluation is critical.

Free introductory services demonstrates confidence in the quality of your services and your willingness to work in partnership with your clients. In today's crowded services market getting the opportunity to build trust and earn loyalty is the key to growing your own professional practice on firm foundations.

Not every startup survives and many don't thrive, so targeting startups carries risk. All our suppliers need to carefully consider the cost of their generosity vs the lifespan and lifetime value of the return. These are medium-long term spread bets that are equivalent to Angel investment, much more in the realms of Marketing strategies than Sales tactics. We do our best to filter out the obviously "lifestyle" or growth restricted business models, however we do not promise every seed you plant will bear fruit. You just have to balance this against the sales cost of winning that business away from your competitors that did establish a relationship early on with the scaleups and unicorns of the future.