A rare business tip from Laser.

Once you have stumbled upon an intractable and unnoticed problem, developed a product, established a tiny cult following of early customers/enthusiasts, do something that goes against all your instincts:

Charge more. Charge 3x or 4x more than the most expensive competitor.

In my first startup, my cofounders and I nailed a niche offering in an entrenched, wealthy, legacy industry. I had worked in that industry in my first job doing software, and so we got to know what worked and drove the best people there insane.

We had good angels, well known, but no track record, and our product required big monopoly-like companies to take a risk in an area of their business considered a critical organ, but admittingly old when viewed from the lens of tech innovation. Think mainframe systems, cobalt, etc.

Our go to market strategy was to be young, smart, tech guys who dropped out of college to build something that should have already been built a decade ago. We quoted 3x our competitors. Astronomical prices. We met with companies and basically talked down to them about their product, asking why their tech partners had been ripping them off, failing to implement such an obvious next step. We demoed a slim prototype which could save them 100s of millions over a decade, and help them move much faster as a company overall.

They loved it, and it worked. None of thr well established companies had the balls to do what we did how we did it. Our products are still (invisibly) powering many name brand companies in one of the largest industries, nearly 15 years later.

Charge more.