Get this right and the rest is a matter of execution. Get it wrong and no feature will save you.

If you do not choose the category, your buyer will — and they will pick the one where you look worst.

Nobody in your buyer's organization wakes up wanting to buy software.

The CTO who bought your first version is not the committee that will approve the next nine.

What you built is not what the buyer sees.

If the conversation is losing, do not argue harder. Argue somewhere else.

Your technical buyer wants stories more than your non-technical buyer — they are the ones forwarding them upstairs.

Your name has to appear in three evaluation calls before procurement will entertain you.