broette profile picture
broette profile picture

broette

Enterprise AE

Contributor
Fire Starter

Has anyone sold to Tesla/SpaceX (Elon Musk trust companies in general)? If so, how did you go about engaging them?

Hi fellow savages. I'd like to sell some wonderful software to Tesla/SpaceX but they're not even talking to vendors unless you're on their "approved vendor list", apparently. I'm not sure how to get on that list before we get to even talk to anyone lol. So a classic chicken/egg issue here.


Has anyone had success selling them in the past, and if so, did you use a partner (please share the name via DM if you can) or did you go direct? If you went direct, how did you get them to engage?


I love you all and appreciate the help in advance.


-your desperate sales savage

📃 Procurement
🎉 Wins
3

10 comments

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CoorsKing
WR Officer
4
Retired King of the Coors Knights
They were a customer (churned a year ago or so). You DO need someone internally to sponsor you into the "approved vendor" portal. I do not remember how we got on the list in the first place though, I will go back and look. 
broette
Contributor
1
Enterprise AE
Thank you so much, that would be a huge help!
CoorsKing
WR Officer
1
Retired King of the Coors Knights
So this is back in 2011 but it looks like we got an RFP submitted inbound and then were onboarded during the eval process. 
broette
Contributor
1
Enterprise AE
bah. we'll never get an RFP as they don't know our solution is even out there, saving heaps of money and accelerating CI/CD lifecycles and shit. Need to get us on that damn list somehow
CoorsKing
WR Officer
1
Retired King of the Coors Knights
I think they are allowed to take disco meetings, just can't do a formal eval without the VAP. Just start sending over your business case, and why you are better than the incumbent. 

For CI/CD I think they use Bamboo and GoCD if I recall correctly.

Good Luck!
broette
Contributor
1
Enterprise AE
TY for the info, super helpful! We play in a newer space where they won't even understand a use case until they talk to us. Essentially, we can replicate their databases through virtual DBs and it will reduce their hosting costs by like 10x, in addition to making DB copies available to devs in minutes versus days/weeks and they'll all be securely masked for compliance. Because it's rather new stuff it's a bit hard to get them to even look at it just yet. 
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
2
☕️
Never to SpaceX/Tesla, but I have dealt with getting on vendor lists and it's a realllllll pain. Find someone on the procurement team, the more junior the better, and ping them. Ask them about how they handle vendor approvals and what you can do to get queued up for review. They may not approve anyone unless there are active RFPs, so ask them what types of projects they are working on and active RFPs they have out there (they may share, may not). This intel may help you get in with a tangential use case.
broette
Contributor
1
Enterprise AE
I appreciate the info! Will try that route for sure. Ideally we avoid RFPs but this might be one of those scenarios where it might be of help. Thanks again!
Beans
Big Shot
0
Enterprise Account Executive
They are a current customer - but not my vertical.


Looks like it was a webinar flip from the SF activity. 
broette
Contributor
0
Enterprise AE
Thank you! do you know if they went through a partner or just direct with your company?

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