What they care about #2. Trust

Order of thought: does this solve my problem, then can I trust you with it.
Everything else is downstream of that.

Price, exit, support, data ownership, all of them are trust questions wearing different clothes. A buyer who does not trust you does not ask about price.

And in a small-vendor world, trust is the whole gate. Nobody worries whether Microsoft will be here next year.

So the question is: who am I letting in. Not features, not cost. The buyer is asking whether you will still exist in two years, whether his data leaks, and whether a real person answers when it breaks. 🔑

Three questions, and no pitch deck answers them.

Will you exist in two years? 23andMe had 15 million customers and filed for bankruptcy in 2025. The DNA data went into the sale as an asset. Google has killed close to 300 products. Evernote laid off most of its staff after being bought and moved the company to Europe.

"We have funding" is not an answer.
"Here is what happens to your data if we die" is.

To be continued... 🔜