The length of the bizdev cycle

Doing business development and early stage sales in a startup is often frustrating. Many of your actions like reaching out to potential customers and establishing a constant communication take week. That’s why until you find the product/market fit it is wise to stay lean and watch your burn rate very carefully. But it’s also very important not to let the slow progress discourage you. Many of the actions you undertake will bring results long after you wrote them off as losses.

It is very important to schedule your energy, and most of all financing accordingly. The rough rule for a full bizdev cycle (from early customer contact to first closed sales) is 6 months. However, you often will hear about contracts signed after showing a powerpoint presentation. In other stories it takes 1 or 2 years and several pivots before first revenue hits the door. In B2B products, I’m pretty much sure the length of the cycle is strictly correlated with the weight and urgency of the problem you’re solving for the client. Sometimes you can have a brilliant product that will save the user millions of dollars annually, but unless someone there really cares about these savings (for instance it’s all in a budget of a single department) the progress may be slow, if at all.