The customer repaid us in one year.
The project stayed with us for five.

We won it by agreeing to something a much larger competitor could not accommodate.

The customer needed an onsite team for knowledge transfer. Much of that cost would come at the beginning, and they wanted to spread the payments over twelve months.

The larger provider wanted to bill that initial cost in the same quarter.

That was the opening for us.

But agreeing to wait was not a small concession.

Our people still needed to be paid. We would have to fund the initial work ourselves while collecting the money over the following year.

I made the call.

The contract set out the repayment commitment. The customer agreed to cover our cost of capital.

We did not lower the price.

We changed when the customer had to pay it.

That distinction mattered. We were taking on a funding responsibility, and the agreement recognised its cost.

The customer paid as agreed. What began with a conversation about twelve months of payments became five years of work.

Looking back, our advantage was not that we had more resources.

It was that we could understand the customer’s constraint, make a decision and take responsibility for it.

That is one advantage small companies should protect as they grow.
Not the willingness to say yes to everything. That can put you out of business.

The ability to recognise when a reasonable change in terms can make a good deal work for both sides.

Before lowering your price, find out what is actually stopping the customer from buying.
For us, it was the payment calendar.

What commercial term have you changed that helped you win a customer?

Krishna Lakamsani | Serial Entrepreneur | Investor | I write at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of the human job market,
sharing my life lessons, reflections, and honest takes from the founder-investor's seat.