E119 – Terzo: AI Startup Selling into the Fortune 500 with Brandon Card

How can AI help enterprises unlock valuable insights hidden in tens of thousands of contracts, invoices, and financial documents? Terzo is using AI to revolutionize enterprise data mining, tackling the complex world of Fortune 500 sales. With 90% of global IT spend concentrated in the Fortune 100, is it possible to build a multi-billion-dollar company without selling into the Fortune 500? We break down the differences between servicing Fortune 500 giants versus the faster sales cycles of smaller enterprise customers. Other key topics include:The balance between acquiring new logos versus expanding within existing customers.Striking the right 30/70 revenue growth balance to align with VC investors.How AI SaaS sales cycles differ from classic SaaS sales models.Navigating complex enterprise sales processes, including the role of the “AI Czar” who can either block deals or demand bakeoff POCs, creating temporary inflated ARR for startups.The percentage of AI deployments actively in production versus those stuck in R&D.The internal business units that must be aligned to close a large enterprise AI SaaS deal.The long game: spending a year to get into a budget cycle for the following year. 📺 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NIdAl92OIlo 🎙 Find all episodes of Fireside with a VC: https://www.7bc.vc/podcast 💡 Learn more about Terzo: https://terzo.ai 📩 Contact Terzo CEO Brandon Card: bcard@terzocloud.com 💰 Learn more about 7BC Venture Capital:https://7bc.vc 💰 Contact Andrew Romans: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romans/ 🚀 VCs: Pitch your fund to LPs for free atthe Global VC Demo Day: https://www.7bc.vc/events 🔹 Austin SXSW – March 11, 2025: https://lu.ma/mgsso7p2 🔹 Singapore – May 6, 2025: https://lu.ma/hgij4ynk 🔹 San Francisco – May 21, 2025: https://lu.ma/00xkzshf 🔹 London – June 17, 2025: https://lu.ma/br2zb72h 📩 Subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive VC& startup insights: https://subscribe.7bcventurecapital.com 📚 Get Andrew's latest books:• Masters of Raising Venture Capital: Amazon Link • Masters of Corporate Venture Capital: http://rb.gy/u46e9r 💬 Join the conversation! Leave your comments and let us know your thoughts on this episode. 👎Negative shoutout to Riverside. We pay for their professional subscription and they could not remove the Riverside watermark because my guest used a blurred background. Someone tell me a better software to use. I’m ready to dump Riverside if they can’t fix this after wasting our time on failed customer support.