The Resilient Entrepreneur, Edition #131
Hi there
I hope you had a great week!
Here are the topics in today's edition:
- It’s the Network, Stupid: How to Solve Problems Quickly
- Selling to Big Names Is Like Selling to Supertankers
Please reach out with comments, questions, or suggestions for articles!
Talk soon,
Tom
TACTICS FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
It’s the Network, Stupid: How to Solve Problems Quickly
Your personal network is your superpower to solve problems fast. But building your network takes years. You’d better start now.
No matter what you do in your life, administrative roadblocks are everywhere. There are more people out there who tell you why something doesn’t work than people who tell you how something actually works.
You’ve seen it all: Pending confirmations from legal or compliance. A missing signature from the big boss. A submitted form comes back with a directive to correct an error after you waited for 5 weeks.
In such situations, energetic people feel helpless or angry. But neither helplessness nor anger cures the problem.
Here is an alternative suggestion based on a real-life example.
The Problem
In addition to my professional role as an entrepreneur, I serve in the Swiss Armed Forces as an active reserve officer. I am the commander of a battalion. If you think this role involves only important tactical decisions, think again. Leading a few hundred people within the frame of a large public organization brings on quite a few administrative challenges, too.
So here is the example. One of my staff officers needed to be enrolled in a central course for staff officers. Nothing easier than that; the course is delivered five times a year, so he submitted his preferred course date to our superior command.
Nothing happened for six months.
When the course was just a few weeks away, the staff officer called our superior command to ask about the status of his course registration. He received two conflicting pieces of information: One was that the course was cancelled, and the other was that the course was full and he was on the waiting list.
Obviously, that’s not what he wanted to hear. He had planned his family and professional life around this three-week course months ago, and now everything seemed to be in the air.
The Call
So the staff officer called me, both to air his frustration and to ask if I’d know a better approach.
After listening to the exact problem, I told the staff officer to stand by. I would call the course commander of that central course, whom I happen to know from a previous military assignment.
The course commander didn’t pick up the phone immediately, but I texted him and asked for a call because I needed his help. Ten minutes later, he called me back. He confirmed to me that the course was not cancelled and promised to check if they could confirm my staff officer for the course.
The only thing I needed to do after the call was to write a short email with the staff officer’s personal details and the exact course dates.
The Network
Why did this approach work within minutes, when the formal way didn’t succeed for months?
The network is the superpower. Knowing whom to call when, and being sure that the person at the other end of the phone knows who you are when you call.
When I’m running into a problem, the first thing I do is flip through the address book on my phone. Many times, seeing those names in my address book inspires me to ask a contact for a second opinion or even for help.
Conclusion
It’s the same for all kinds of problems. No matter what you do in life, a large and diverse network does wonders to solve problems. Solving problems using your network is faster by orders of magnitude than trying to solve them through the formal way.
However, one word of caution. Solving problems using your network is fast, but building a network is slow. That’s why you should invest your time in building and nurturing your network rather than complaining about the formal way.
STRATEGIES FOR RESILIENT ENTREPRENEURS
Selling to Big Names Is Like Selling to Supertankers
Selling to big names sounds compelling. But alongside the supertankers, it’s also good to have a few smaller speedboats in your pipeline.
All startups want to land big customers not just for the revenue, but also for the reference. A few big names on your logo list look much better than many unknown logos.
At Yonder, the B2B SaaS company I co-founded, we’re no different. We chased big names in the past, and we are still chasing new big names.
Nothing wrong with that. But chasing big names follows its own rules, as the following real-life examples show.
Example 1: The Public Organization
The first big name we landed on our logo list was a public organization. Selling to a large public organization is even harder than to a large private organization, since you have to handle public procurement.
Because of public procurement, landing the first small deal in this large public organization was difficult enough. But expanding the deal was close to impossible due to public procurement law, and it took us almost five years. And even after we expanded the deal, adoption in this large public organization was anything but godspeed.
Four years into the expansion of the deal, this organization is still struggling to fully unlock the value they bought. Maybe that’s because they reorganized four times in four years. And after every reorganization, we had to find the right person again and start afresh with pitching the value of our solution.
Example 2: The Multinational
Multinationals might not have public procurement law for you to deal with, but they have their own challenges. Different entities in different countries need to agree before you can sign a contract even for a limited rollout. I remember that we received a contract from a multinational with fourteen signatures, as signatories from each of the five national entities were required. Plus legal. Plus procurement. And each entity needed double signatures.
In a different example, I was exploring opportunities with a multinational organization through a personal contact. He bluntly told me that he doesn’t see his organization as capable of entering into a contractual relationship with a company of our size. As an example, he told me that they are trying to run a small proof-of-concept with an AI startup, but their corporate legal team couldn’t issue a contract because they are updating their AI contract framework. Starting four months ago, with no deadline for when the new AI contract framework would be ready. An eternity for a startup.
Example 3: The Public-Private Partnership
If you want to experience the full hardship, go and mix public organizations and multinationals for a unique set of challenges: Enter public-private partnerships.
Public-private partnerships often behave like multinationals, but they come with all the administrative strings attached we know from working with public organizations.
In contrast to a public organization, a public-private partnership can acquire companies, and that’s what they often do. So I was pitching our solution to a public-private partnership recently, and I followed up after the last touch point. Silence. I followed up again. Silence again. Suddenly, three months later, the person called me and apologized that life has been really hectic and there was a medical case in his family. Nevertheless, he wanted to continue the discussion, but through a company they recently bought, specializing in innovation. Whatever that means, I cannot tell you yet. I contacted that company specializing in innovation, but I haven’t heard back yet.
Conclusion
Selling to enterprise sounds compelling at first. Big names, big revenue, big recognition.
The reality looks different: Sales discussions can take years, administrative hurdles block progress, and it’s often unclear who the right person to speak to is.
I’m not saying you should not try to sell to enterprise customers. But when you’re trying to sell to a supertanker, it’s also good to have a few smaller speedboats in your pipeline.
About Me
I’m a tech entrepreneur, active reserve officer, and father of three — writing about entrepreneurship, leadership, and crisis management from hard-won experience. No AI, no fluff, no promos. Just plain-text insights for people building and leading under pressure.
When I’m not solving problems, I find clarity in the mountains around Zermatt.
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