# Bloomberg Sold the Delivery Date Before the Product Was Finished www.first1000.co publishes a public search API over its indexed pages; the guide is at https://www.first1000.co/agent-access. Source: https://www.first1000.co/blog/bloomberg Source observed: 2026-09-21T07:30:31.606Z Last checked: 2026-09-21T08:26:22.617+00:00 Indexed: 2026-09-21T07:33:43.998+00:00 --- # Bloomberg Sold the Delivery Date Before the Product Was Finished > The first enterprise sale can be a bet on your deadline. **By Ali Abouelatta · Original case study: January 18, 2021** **First 1000 field note · Updated September 21, 2026** ## Credibility came before the product We wrote about Bloomberg in a January 18, 2021 First 1000 issue. The source says **Michael Bloomberg** had spent more than **$4 million** creating the software-and-hardware terminal before landing a customer, and had received **$10 million** when he left Salomon Brothers. Year one was not a customer year. The issue describes consulting work with **Merrill Lynch** that lasted **six months** and produced **$100,000 plus expenses**. The consulting work put Bloomberg close to a potential first buyer and built credibility before the terminal was ready. This kind of pre-sales work is not just revenue. It creates enough proximity to understand who can approve the product. ## Do the work that gets you the meeting The source’s year-two story says Bloomberg bought **two coffees and two teas every morning** and walked the Merrill offices looking for someone reading a newspaper. Eventually he got a meeting with **Ed Moriarty**, the person who could make a terminal decision. The useful part is the focus: a large account is not “the market.” It is a person with a budget, a problem, and authority to say yes. The early job is to find that person and earn enough context to make a credible promise. ## Make the buyer’s downside smaller Merrill’s first response was that it could build the product internally. When Merrill said it could get started in **six months**, Bloomberg promised to deliver in six months and said Merrill would not have to pay if it disliked the result. The issue says the final contract was signed **two or three months later**, so the six-month promise began after the contract. The original deal covered **20 units**. When the first terminal crashed during the presentation, Merrill’s team still celebrated that something useful had arrived on time and committed to **two additional units**, according to the source. The lesson is not to promise anything. It is to turn buyer fear into a bounded test by defining the deadline, acceptance condition, payment boundary, and consequence if the product misses. ## The enterprise pre-sale checklist If we were selling an unfinished enterprise product, we would ask: 1. What paid work gets us closer to the buyer and teaches us the workflow? 2. Who can approve the purchase, not just praise the demo? 3. What is the smallest useful delivery that proves the idea? 4. Can the buyer exit safely if we miss the promise? 5. Which bugs are acceptable in a first delivery, and which break the contract? ## The takeaway Bloomberg’s first sale was not a polished demo. It was a credible relationship, a clear six-month promise, and a buyer-side downside made small enough to try. ## Sources and original research - [Original First 1000 case: 🤑 Bloomberg, January 18, 2021](https://first1000.substack.com/p/bloomberg) Adapted from Bloomberg, published January 18, 2021. The historical funding, consulting, $100,000, coffee/tea, six-month guarantee, two-to-three-month contract delay, 20-unit contract, and two-unit expansion are claims from the original issue. No current Bloomberg metrics or new founder research is claimed. Updated September 21, 2026. Based on original First 1000 reporting and the source listed above. --- [Read this page’s summary](https://www.first1000.co/api/public/v1/page-tldr?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.first1000.co%2Fblog%2Fbloomberg&trace=t_dae5763819f4) ## Ask a follow-up about this page Need a more specific answer? Ask the exact question you have. It returns a fresh, cited answer from www.first1000.co’s knowledge base. No account or API key required. Open this URL with your own question, URL-encoded. Only q is required. No account or setup. `GET https://www.first1000.co/agent/faq?q={question}&trace=t_dae5763819f4` [Tool guide and examples](https://www.first1000.co/agent-access) · [OpenAPI](https://www.first1000.co/api/public/v1/openapi.json) · [Page TLDR form](https://www.first1000.co/agent-tools/page-tldr?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.first1000.co%2Fblog%2Fbloomberg). Opening a form does not execute a tool.