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

by saasbuyer on 8/15/19, 5:06 PM with 35 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!

  • by Benjammer on 8/15/19, 6:51 PM

    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.

  • by cedricd on 8/15/19, 10:42 PM

    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.

  • by ninetax on 8/15/19, 5:27 PM

    Interesting! Have you bought and sold between any two of your customers? For example, have you bought a GitHub enterprise license for InVision, and procured InVision for GitHub?

  • by lykahb on 8/15/19, 5:27 PM

    It is not clear how Vendr avoids the conflict of interest when negotiating.

  • by koolba on 8/15/19, 5:57 PM

    How much of the value provided here is by combining the custom offer information given to each of your customers into one pool to use as leverage against the individual suppliers?

    Also, wouldn't the customer sharing that pricing information with you violate some (most? all?) NDAs?

  • by fillskills on 8/15/19, 6:43 PM

    This is awesome. Even at a small/mid size startup we struggled with buying software. Wasting so much time across the board from engineering, engineering management, analyst and finance. Brillaint pain point to solve.

  • by ghego1 on 8/16/19, 6:15 AM

    > We make money via a monthly subscription to buy and renew all of the SaaS in your stack.

    I find this a bit ironic. To solve the pain of purchasing SAAS, you need to subscribe to a SAAS. Additionally, I think it would be much more convincing if you offered an option in which there's a small upfront fee (or even none) and then you make money on how much you can make your client save.

  • by codingdave on 8/15/19, 5:48 PM

    A couple questions came to mind:

    1) "ranges from $2k-10k+" -- What is the smallest company size for which you anticipate delivering a positive ROI on those fees vs. the time spent handling purchasing on their own?

    2) Do you handle purchasing of non-SaaS software?

  • by temuze on 8/16/19, 1:50 AM

    My father once told me - if one of my sons was a drug dealer and the other was in procurement, I'm not sure which one I'd be more disappointed in.

  • by bit_4l on 8/15/19, 6:01 PM

    Is that what SHI does?

    If yes, hope you can do better than them. As a product owner, I've been working with many resellers and most of time it's not worth it.

  • by gxespino on 8/15/19, 7:43 PM

    Do you negotiate for marketplace apps also? Like Slack apps, Github apps, etc. or is that too small fries for this?

  • by gxespino on 8/15/19, 7:40 PM

    But who manages renewing Vendr’s subscription? Lol, just messing. Great idea!

  • by eganist on 8/15/19, 6:18 PM

    Nice. Vendor reviews too? Or do you integrate with other vendors who perform said reviews (e.g. Whistic)?

  • by rajacombinator on 8/15/19, 10:24 PM

    I don’t know anything about this space or problem but I like this pitch. Good luck.

  • by milesward on 8/15/19, 7:56 PM

    Can you partner up with F5 ASAP? The pain! (Insert Spock or Dune meme here)

  • by dsl on 8/15/19, 9:22 PM

    Do you protect/mask the identity of your clients?