(i) List all completed features. - Guarantee these will work now & compare & contrast with your current competitors. Preferably give them a testing environment after the demo.
(ii) List all features currently being developed. - Estimate when they will become available. Make sure you fudge enough, so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot.Share this road map during the sales cycle.
(iii) Request your clients for any features that are important to their business, that you have overlooked.
(iv) Make a list all future features including the ones from the above list - Request your clients to prioritize these and give them a date by which you'll have the estimates done and have built a product roadmap. Share the roadmap.
(v) Be in constant communication with the clients. Keep them aware of any changes that is happening to the roadmap.
With all this we got beaten up on pricing as the clients were comparing apples to oranges.
So we hired sales people with expensive hobbies, and watched them work the magic.
In case anyone misses the reference, there was a post on HN a while back about why you want salespeople to have expensive hobbies. It basically boiled down to this:
Sales staff get paid more if they make more sales; people with expensive hobbies need to get paid more; sales staff with expensive hobbies need to make more sales to fund their lifestyles, and will thus be more driven to do so.
However, the challenge is we haven't started a full blown cycle yet. So we really have only 1 "client" so far. This is in a space where customers are not very innovative which is where we come in.
Seems like we do have to start the customer development process.
Personally, I would also keep in mind the 'competitor card'. 'Well, your competitor bought our competitor's version, and it's good, but if you go with us, you'll get these extra awesome features that'll help you get ahead of them' or whatever. Then again, that's a job for sales, not for development, and good sales people will know when to play it.
My only worry is talking about products and someone really wants to go and we won't be able to right away.
I don't know about your product, but enterprises take a VERY long time to decide these things. And you can always stretch out the deal to buy some time.
Also ... "They do not have all the pieces we have so our platform is far better" This is dangerous thinking. People generally prefer the most minimal product that actually solves their problem -- only established users want more features.
If you can't cut (or postpone) features, can you ship an early closed beta to some "early adopters"? If people anywhere are using your software it will give the impression that it's right around the corner and people may delay purchasing. If you just say "coming soon" people will not believe that unless you have a track record.
This is a good point to emphasize. Let someone else be first to market and make all the mistakes. Learn from their mistakes and respond faster than they can and you can capitalize on their first-to-market advantage.
People generally prefer the most minimal product that actually solves their problem -- only established users want more features.
I'm not entirely convinced of this. People will tend to buy things with more features because it has more features that they might someday want. The key is complexity. If it's simple to use despite those extra features (or because of them), then they're a benefit. If they make the product harder to use or slower, it's a drawback.
In Japan, the cell phone industry is the logical extreme of this. People cycle phones at ridiculous intervals to get more and better features, most of which don't work well or at all, and all of which make the phone more complicated to use. Yet still, it's a status symbol that you paid for a non-functional accelerometer that your friend doesn't have.
Try not to give those "coming soon" promises, you don't want to be under even more pressure.
Good luck
I don't think customers buy "better", they buy "solution". They don't care about elegance or how many features you have. Just, "does it solve my problem?". If two things solve the same problem, it may then come down to "how easy" and "how much money".
On a different note: if you have a plan, stick with it (if you think it is the right plan). Your competitors may have just validated the market for you.
It's definitely risky, but what other choices do you have?
Why not?
Note: we have a team of 6 developers working on this, so it's not a 1 person thing.
