Startups like their technology. Can’t blame them. You get to witness awesome feats of engineering when you work with startups. But I tend to treat those like works of art, rather than products. Because they command prices like valuable art, rather than products.
Founders tend to focus too much on their technology. This is understandable, but that is not what your corporate purchasing manager is after. To win that B2B contract focus on these three things in this exact priority.
Price
Corporate customers don’t pay green premiums for commodities. Forget marketing your product as sustainable. Batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines have become commodities. You can begin trying to sell in these markets your new technology only if you can offer a lower price. No amount of “sustainability” or “quality” differences will be relevant.
Lower life-cycle costs are also a poor sell. Corporate purchasing managers do not get rewarded for paying higher prices now for possible savings later. They have a budget, and they need to stick to it, or better, spend less.
In a consumer market, you could charge a green premium, as there will always be a group, willing to pay it. Like in electric cars. But not in the B2B.
Reliability
Even if your price can beat Chinese competition any day, you still have to prove that your product can actually perform as promised. A good price doesn’t guarantee good performance, and the purchasing manager will take some heat if your product doesn’t perform.
Get any certification you can. Run your product for a year or more in industrial park test zones, or in less regulated markets. Show your corporate customers that your product works reliably.
Resilience
COVID-19, war in Ukraine, and China’s dominant position in many parts of the green supply chain got everyone thinking of supply chain resilience. An innovative product, relying on 90% of Chinese-made parts has a much lower chance of being purchased, than a product with a diverse supply chain.
This sounds like a contradiction. How can you make a cheap and reliable product, if you don’t source all of its parts from China? The straightforward answer is to use subsidies. You can get compensated for using local content in some places, like the USA.
Another would be innovating along the supply chain. Get someone to make you your product, instead of doing it yourself. A manufacturer-as-a-service is likely to have bigger economies of scale than you and a more diverse supply chain.
Partner with startups, who are working to disrupt your supply chain. They also need customers, and you can be their first customer.
Keep in mind, that If there is any premium that a corporate customer might be willing to pay, it is the resilience premium, but not a green premium.
Sustainability
This is what startups usually put first when marketing their product. In reality, this should be the last thing you say. Ah, and by the way, it will enhance your sustainability. If the product is all of the above, sustainability is a nice bonus.