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Graph of Plan

Developers Control Purchasing

Individual developers can make purchasing decisions for tools under $200/month without procurement approval in their organisations.

The Assumption

PLG (product-led growth) assumes developers can self-serve. But can they actually pay? In many organisations, developers don’t have purchasing authority. Even a $50/month tool might require:

  • Manager approval
  • Procurement review
  • Security assessment
  • Vendor onboarding

If developers can’t buy without friction, PLG fails. We’d need enterprise sales from day one.

Evidence

Supporting signals:

  • Vercel, Netlify, Supabase grew through individual developer purchases
  • Many developers have corporate cards for small tool purchases
  • “Shadow IT” exists—developers buy tools and expense them
  • Startups and small teams have minimal procurement friction

Counter-signals:

  • Enterprise security increasingly blocks unapproved tools
  • Zero-trust security models require vendor review
  • Developers at big companies often lack purchasing authority
  • Remote work increased security scrutiny on tool usage

What Would Prove This Wrong

  • Most deals stall at procurement review
  • Average sales cycle exceeds 30 days even for small amounts
  • Enterprise security consistently blocks SmartBoxes
  • Developers self-report no purchasing authority in surveys

Impact If Wrong

If developers can’t buy, PLG doesn’t work. We’d need to:

  • Sell to enterprises top-down
  • Build for procurement (SOC 2, security questionnaires, legal review)
  • Accept longer sales cycles and higher CAC
  • Price higher to cover sales costs

Testing Plan

Early signals:

  • Track time from signup to paid conversion
  • Ask in onboarding: “Do you have purchasing authority?”
  • Monitor where deals stall in the funnel

Validation:

  • Over 50% of conversions without procurement involvement
  • Average signup-to-paid under 7 days

Kill criteria: If less than 20% of signups can self-convert, pivot to sales-led.

Depends on:

Affects:

Assumption

Individual developers can make purchasing decisions for tools under $200/month without procurement approval in their organisations.

Depends On

This assumption only matters if these are true:

How To Test

Customer interviews about purchasing authority. Track signup-to-paid conversion by company size.

Validation Criteria

This assumption is validated if:

  • Over 50% of conversions happen without procurement involvement
  • Average time from signup to paid under 7 days
  • Developers self-report purchasing authority in surveys

Invalidation Criteria

This assumption is invalidated if:

  • Most deals stall at procurement review
  • Enterprise security blocks unapproved tools
  • Average sales cycle exceeds 30 days even for small deals

Dependent Products

If this assumption is wrong, these products are affected: