Max Denevich

And the business got better after that.

The most dangerous thing you can do in traditional industry is assume that being right about the problem is enough.

It's not.

Find one segment first and make it happy.

Don't try to serve everyone.

We learned this the hard way.

S&B and enterprise look like the same market from the outside, but they are completely different games with different rules, different expectations, different economics.

Pick one, go deep, prove it works.

If you try to stretch across segments too early, you'll end up building a product that's too complex for the smaller customers and not focused enough for the bigger ones.

So be ready to let go of a segment if that's the business needs.

Also, build with your partners, not around them.

In traditional industries, the real bottleneck is almost never your product.

It's trust and access.

The people who already have trust inside your target customers are your most valuable asset.

So don't treat them as a referral channel.

It's too simple.

Make them a part of your go-to-market from day one.

And hire for ownership, especially early on.

A person with a founder mindset and three years of experience will outperform a polished enterprise rep with 15 years at your stage almost every time.

Skills change fast.