Ask HN: How do you answer, “How many customers do you have?”
Hi all,
We are a new start up and at the stage now where we are giving demos to medium/large organisations.
A common question we get is, who are you current clients and how many do you have? Our answer at the moment is none, and this never goes down well at all.
How have you handled these questions? I once attended a conference with a bizdev guy who answered like this: "How many clients do you have?" "Hmmm... I think we're under 300 right now" In reality, we had none. I couldn't help but chuckle, but it was technically true and he closed some deals that way. Lots of companies would consider the answer to that question to be confidential information. When I worked at a startup, the initial deployments were well aware that they were beta sites and that they would be working with us to polish the product. This could have been taken both ways: they would have some input on development, but they could expect to face some issues with it from time to time. The other day I talked to a business partner and told him that our customer base grew by 150% in the last year. He then asked for absolute numbers. I just told him the absolute numbers are still embarrassing low and left it at that. Stick with your honest answer of none.