Jim Pratt Offers Mentorship for Growing Software Startup on Greenlight Maine

For many entrepreneurs, three things stand between their present reality and their dream, funding, coaching, and awareness. Greenlight Maine is a show that hopes to address all three of these, providing mentoring and advice, good press, and a prize purse for winning presenters.

WEX joins other large Maine-based organizations as a sponsor of this show, and we are happy to share that our very own Jim Pratt got a chance to sit down and discuss data and more with the panel.

In Greenlight Maine Season 2, Episode 24, Mr. Pratt joined a panel of three mentors moderated by Don Gooding, serial entrepreneur and host of Greenlight Maine to discuss business with Troy Locke of Spring Point Solutions, a software developer and SaaS provider of quality management and shop management systems for a multitude of niche industries.

Jim Pratt Talks Negotiations, Data, and more on Greenlight Maine

The panel of ‘anonymous mentors’ included Mr. Pratt, who discussed some of the challenges that Spring Point faces, offering advice on finding new reselling partners and working with Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 customers.

Negotiating as the First Mover and the Little Guy

As someone who has worked in situations similar to Spring Point, Mr. Pratt offered some key pieces of advice on working with clients of all sizes:

“In my experience, any negotiation—whether it’s big to big, little to little, little to big—there are a couple of things to keep in mind; first of all, be really, really clear on what you want out of [the relationship] and be able to state that clearly and crisply. Just as important, be really clear what the benefits and advantages are to the other party […] Talk about what’s in it for the other [party].”

Adding on that, Mr. Pratt goes on to share how solutions like Spring Point can sell to customers on the seller’s data ownership terms:

“You could say, ‘would it be important to understand what you were doing [and how] it stacks up against an industry benchmark—the only way to know that is to allow someone who has the [anonymized] data from throughout the industry to expose that.’ Most players want to know how they’re doing relative to the industry.”

The Future includes Data

He goes on to discuss some of the important considerations when being the first to market and offering a unique product that can change or reshape an industry:

“The fact that you’re aggregating data in a niche industry where it’s never been done before and there’s value to all of the players in that ecosystem… You need to make sure that the people on the other side of the negotiating table understand that.”

Mr. Pratt explains to Locke the immense opportunity that Spring Point has to become the leading aggregator of data for this industry—one of the most important things for growth in the future of business.

“In a niche industry where no one’s really taken the trouble or time to be the data aggregator, you’re in the perfect position […] there’s a huge amount of value for all the players—vendors, suppliers [and more].”

The full episode can be viewed here, Spring Point’s video can be viewed here, and the ‘behind the scenes’ video can be viewed here.

Conclusion

As a proud sponsor of Greenlight Maine, we are happy that Jim Pratt shared his insights as part of the panel of mentors. We hope for all of the best for Spring Point Solutions, both on Greenlight Maine and in its business ventures. Subscribe to Greenlight Maine’s YouTube Page and watch our 30-second bump for the show below:

Innovation and Community Focus at WEX

Learn more about our work in the community—encouraging innovation, improving our employee impact, and helping our local nonprofits—by reading the articles below:

• Developing a Culture of Innovation at WEX
• What Does It Take to become a Billion-Dollar Business? Mainebiz Interview with CEO Melissa Smith
• The New WEX Summer Intern Program
• Building a Better Brand at WEX
• Corporate Philanthropy Efforts at WEX
• WEX is Seeing RED and that’s A Good Thing