The only known photographs of mathematician and computing pioneer Ada Lovelace have been acquired by the UK's National Portrait Gallery just before they were expected to be sold to a private buyer.
At a guess - I suspect they are assessing risk of investing time/money in installing your product into their company and how they would deal with issues if you are off ill one day or want a holiday.
You need to be honest about your company size, but turn it into a positive, such as sole developer, backed by a third-party support package (assuming you have one), or that the company is expected to grow fast, so they wont be relying on just one person to fix things etc.
Pitch it really well, and depending on the type of customer, they may even end up wanting to invest in your company to help you scale up faster than you could expect (yes, I have seen that happen with start-ups).
Don't be afraid of awkward questions like these, as they will crop up, and each time you gain experience in handling the RFP style enquiries, and with experience comes improved skills to close those sales deals.
Yes, I used the term troll from my background many years ago writing about patent trolls, so maybe it irks people, but people who complain about one word in a much longer article are maybe... missing the point.
Anyway, as you will probably notice from the article, I am not "picking the first photos that is convenient", but being sent the banner images etc by event organisers to promote their events.
Yes, I can go back with a form for them to fill in and confirm they have copyright clearance etc., and doubtless they'll check, and confirm they have from photo agency X, and maybe I should also check that the photo agency has issued clearance, and that they themselves have validated that the photographer has verified they definetly took the photos... etc etc etc.
You can see that there has to be a point at which you accept that someone in the chain is being honest.
The issue isn't me nicking photos that are convenient, but accepting that a photo sent to me to use in an article/event listing has been cleared by the PR/marketing dept that is sending it to me.
The majority of problems come from small orgs who may seem to lack an awareness of copyright, so to protect myself, I am now taking the decision not to use their images unless I have built up trust in the sender.
However, even large orgs have been caught out - one example was the large theatre that paid for a license to use an image in a marketing poster, only for the stock agency to object to it being used on my website because the license (weirdly) only permitted use in their publications and no where else.
That's a large org trying to do the right thing, and I am trying to do the right thing, and still getting hammered by... well, yes, they're copyright trolls.
A leason I learned many long years ago is not to treat a customer cancelling a subscription as a lost customer, but as a customer going on holiday from you.
When you make the cancellation process smooth and friendly, if that customer is reconsidering at a later date, they will remember that their last interaction with you was a pleasent one.
If it's hard to unsubscribe - then their last memory is a bad one, and it's even harder to persuade that person to resubsubscribe again.
This is admitedly more applicable to industries with a lot of annual churn between suppliers - such as insurance, internet providers, power suppliers etc -- but it should be a rule of thumb for all companies.
I would love a faster dishwasher -- not because I need the dishes washed faster, but becuase I live in an open-plan flat with the kitchen and living room in the same space, and anything to reduce how long I have the dishwasher churning away would be wonderful.
Fortuanately, I tend to get away with a 30-min wash for most days, but someone please invent a 10-minute dishwasher please :)
No one really knows what causes them - plenty of theories but not facts - and that's why they are both exceptionally facinating as to how they form, and yet also utterly terrifying.