Reducing The Risks For IT StartupsReducing The Risks For IT Startups

One of the biggest challenges for start-up IT companies is getting their foot in the door of prospective customers. But if the technology being offered by the startup is a poor match for a prospective customer, then all they are doing is wasting their time and that of the IT executives they are pitching to.

Insight Alliance, a company that coaches start-ups and early-stage IT companies, is trying to narrow that IT vendor-IT buyer gap. The Woodside, Calif., company, formerly known as Insight Ventures, is moving away from playing match maker for venture capitalists and start-ups in favor of providing training, development, and coaching to start-up IT companies.

By tapping into the expertise of "CIOs-in-residence" " retired IT executives employed by Insight Alliance " and a panel of volunteer CIOs, the company mentors its start-up clients to help them devise marketing plans that focus their sales efforts on potential customers who are most likely to need their products.

The CIOs-in-residence had careers with such major companies as Arthur Anderson, Ernst & Young, United Airlines, and Wang Laboratories, according to biographies provided by Insight Alliance. And they have a lot of advice for startups about what works and what doesn't when it comes to sales and marketing strategies.

Each start-up client is assigned two CIOs-in-residence who provide the company with mentoring and help them prepare a sales presentation for the CIO panel. The CIO panel, in turn, acts as a sounding board for the startup and provides feedback on their sales pitches.

Q1 Labs Inc., a startup that develops network security management software, says the Insight Alliance approach helped the company fine-tune its sales pitch. "Q1 Labs is the next generation in security solutions. The CIO-in-residence helped us make some changes in our presentation and as a result, of the 20 [sales prospects] we reached out to, only two expressed disinterest," says Tom Turner, Q1 marketing VP.

In addition to helping Q1 refine its sales strategy, Insight Alliance also helped the company garner $29.4 million in venture capital funding.

Vince Sosnkowski, the managing partner of Insight Alliance, believes that his company is on to something big. "No one is doing what we're doing," he says. The goal, he says, is to provide startups with valuable business experience and networking opportunities.