A LinkedIn post crossed my feed this week, which much like most of the AI slop there, drove me nuts.
"Closed my first enterprise deal. $82K ACV. Year one!"
Congratulations. That's a deal. That is not an enterprise deal.
In 2008 we called that a mid-market deal and the AE got a Starbucks gift card and a polite nod from the VP. Enterprise meant $500K minimum, an 18-month cycle, and a buying committee of six, two of whom went on maternity leave during the negotiation. Enterprise meant flying to Bentonville. It meant a procurement department that had its own procurement department.
Now "enterprise" is a tier name on a SaaS pricing page. It sits between "Pro" and "Contact Us" and includes SSO.
Same thing happened to titles.
Twenty-two-year-olds are VPs of Growth, not that age is any indication of ability. Their last job was an internship at a juice bar. The juice bar had three employees. Two of them were also VPs.
I think this happened for three reasons.
One. SaaS got cheap and the companies selling it still needed a top tier on the pricing page. "Enterprise" sounds better than "the plan with SSO."
Two. Mid-market AEs make less than enterprise AEs. So every mid-market AE became an enterprise AE on LinkedIn. The pay didn't follow. The title did.
Three. VCs wanted big logos fast. Big logo at any deal size beat real money at no logo. So "enterprise" stopped meaning the size of the contract and started meaning the size of the customer's Wikipedia page.
I'm not mad about it. Closed deals are closed deals. Eighty-two grand is eighty-two grand. Buy yourself the Starbucks gift card.
Just don't tell my 2008 VP it was enterprise. He'll cry.
Talk soon,
Justin