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About this episode
Ana Petrov turned down a contract worth a third of Tessel's revenue. The customer wanted custom work that would have pulled the whole team away from the product.
We talk about the week she spent deciding, how she told the team, and why growth sped up afterwards instead of slowing down.
In this episode
0:00 The contract
9:30 What it would have cost
21:00 Telling the team
29:15 Three things to borrow
Three things to borrow
Price the distraction, not just the work. The contract paid well but would have frozen the roadmap for a year.
Decide with the team in the room. Ana shared the numbers with everyone before she said no, so nobody felt the decision was made above them.
Say no with a door left open. She offered the customer the standard product. They signed up six months later.
Mentioned in the episode
The two-door test, and where it breaks.
Transcript
Leo: Ana, saying no to a third of your revenue. How long did that decision take?
Ana: About a week of arguing with myself and ten minutes of saying it out loud.
Leo: What tipped it?
Ana: We mapped out the custom work. It would have taken our whole engineering team for a year. Every other customer would have waited.
Leo: How did the team react?
Ana: Relieved, mostly. They had seen the scope before I had.
Leo: And the customer?
Ana: They came back six months later and bought the standard product. Smaller deal, much better fit.
The guest
Ana Petrov
Founder, Tessel
Ana founded Tessel, a scheduling platform for clinics.
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