Launch HN: Vendr (YC S19) – Buying software so you don’t have to

100 pointssaasbuyer6y ago35 comments

Hey HN: I’m Ryan, the founder of Vendr (https://vendr.com).

We buy and renew software for companies. Why? Because the way it's done now is a pain. Stakeholders, especially engineers, are required to spend unnecessary time with software salespeople. We believe that the buying process should be dictated by the buyer. For example, if you want to procure New Relic, you should be able to do it your way, not the salesperson’s way. Vendr was created so that companies can get the SaaS they need without needing to invest the time to procure.

My background is in software sales. Previous to founding Vendr, I was head of enterprise sales for InVision and director of SMB sales for HubSpot, so I've learned how to buy and sell software. I’ve witnessed that many salespeople are really good at wasting customers' time (unnecessary qualification calls, demos, etc). Buying and renewing software is complicated, and even more if you want to get the best deal. We take care of all that and get you the software you need, fast, and at the best possible price. We also handle renewals and are able to reduce the price per seat as a company grows.

Vendr is currently buying and renewing software for many fast-growing companies. We are currently working with Canva, GitLab, Brex, Drift, HubSpot, InVision, and others. These companies have hired us to save time and money. And it’s working. For example, in our first 12 months working with InVision, we saved them over $1.5M. Many of our customers are good negotiators, but they’ve realized that spending the cycles is not a good use of their time.

Here’s how it works: We are typically hired by the head of finance or engineering. We analyze and organize your current SaaS purchases and renewal dates. You introduce Vendr to your vendors and we manage the procurement process from start to finish—getting you exactly what you need without ever having to pick up the phone. We are integrated into your Slack environment to keep you posted along the way.

We make money via a monthly subscription to buy and renew all of the SaaS in your stack. Our subscription fee is based on your company size and ranges from $2k-10k+. Happy to chat directly at ryan@vendr.com.

Have you experienced specific issues buying software? How have your experiences been working with software salespeople? We’d love to hear your feedback and ideas, and your experiences!

35 comments

Benjammer6y ago

Have you talked to any government agencies about using this for larger, public sector, software procurements? I've worked for a govt software vendor in the law enforcement space for a few years, and it's very difficult to actually sell anything real, because the clients don't understand anything and fall for every single marketing/sales tactic from the big vendors. If there were a technically knowledgable middle-man company involved, it would actually be a huge boon for my company because we could focus more resources on building good product that the middleman would understand is better for the client versus fighting the legacy vendors with big marketing budgets and very low engineering support/talent.

joe_lind6y ago

Technology advising as a value-add for less technical buyers definitely sounds like a great opportunity, but it isn't on our roadmap yet. Government contracting and procurement (especially at the federal level) is very complicated, so we've focused initially on high-growth private sector companies.

Thanks a lot for bringing this up! We'll reply back to your comment if our strategy evolves to include this.

Benjammer6y ago

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

>Government contracting and procurement (especially at the federal level) is very complicated

Tell me about it... ha

I saw your founder Ryan say this in another comment here:

>we are testing non-SaaS purchases. As an example, we recently helped one of our customers save a bunch of money on their SOC 2 audit fees

My company also spends a significant amount of money on SOC2 audit every year. Feels like another synergy point here with public sector procurement and software vendors. You can theoretically help agencies find good software products at the right price-point, coming from certified vendors who you've already helped manage all their certifications and audits in an efficient way.

I know this is all pretty ambitious and not super well-aligned with what you guys are doing right now with private, growth companies, but I'm just spitballing here because this type of thing would have some really interesting effects in the govt software space.

cedricd6y ago

Back when I was at a largish company as an engineering manager I had to negotiate these sorts of contracts all the time. Would have paid for this in a heartbeat. You guys are definitely on to something.

We eventually had an in-house person do it and they didn't love managing it either. The hardest part of their job honestly was tracking all the ones we had, ensuring we renewed on time, and talking to the procurement department to get everything squared away. When we had to move off credit cards to more corporate billing it was a nightmare to update everything.

And even when it was all buttoned up I still had to review that list quarterly to ensure we could drop old stuff, maintain which team(s) owned what service from the technical side, etc.

Next time I'm at a bigger company I'm using you for sure.