Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
You're targeting the wrong person in the room
|
Hey Reader, During a mentoring session last week, a B2B SaaS team walked me through their go-to-market logic. They were targeting retailers in the CPG space. The reason? Retailers could mandate that vendors use the platform. Force the supply chain from the top. It sounded smart. It was a trap. I stopped them and asked one question: Who bleeds the most money when this problem goes unsolved? This is a pattern I see constantly in early-stage B2B. Founders confuse power with pain, and they are not the same axis. The powerful entity – the retailer, the enterprise buyer, the platform giant – has leverage, yes. But leverage doesn't create urgency. Pain does. The supplier bleeding money at the end of the quarter has every reason to fight for your product in procurement meetings, beg their finance team to approve the budget, and evangelize it to peers. The retailer with power? They'll park your request in a committee and move on. Your true champion is the one who can't afford the status quo, not the one who controls the room. Power players are convenient in theory. Pain holders are dangerous in practice – dangerous in the best possible way, because they become internal salespeople you never had to hire. The Clarity Filter Insight In B2B, build for whoever is bleeding the most money – not whoever has the most leverage. [Share on LinkedIn] [Share on X] Pull up your supply chain or buyer map today. Draw two columns: power and pain. If they're pointing at the same entity, great. If they're not – and they usually aren't – reconsider who you're building for. The deal you close with the pain holder will close faster, renew harder, and refer louder than the one you spent six months negotiating with the gatekeeper. Speak soon, P.S. Don't write code for a product nobody wants to buy. I built Traction OS to give you the exact 60-day roadmap, sales scripts, and validation templates you need to hit your first $10k MRR without guessing. From complete scratch or with an existing MVP. |
Clarity Filter
Every week, I advise founders on how to hit $10k MRR. On Tuesdays, I share my consulting notes from those private sessions. Learn from their mistakes so you don't burn your own cash.
Hey Reader, Alex had a great demo call with Billy, a marketing manager at an e-commerce brand. Billy asked good questions. Billy seemed interested. Then Billy went quiet. Alex assumed the product wasn't good enough. It was. The pitch was the problem. Alex was selling: "this tool does your email retention work for you." Billy heard: "this tool could do your job without you." That is not a sales pitch. That is a threat. Here is what most B2B founders miss when selling to employees rather than...
Hey Reader, A client came to me frustrated. They had the right targeting. The right demographics. E-commerce decision-makers, correct job titles, correct company sizes. Their LinkedIn ad campaign looked perfect on paper – and it was producing almost nothing. I wasn't surprised. Here's the thing nobody in your marketing agency will say out loud: LinkedIn's ad algorithm is years behind Facebook. It lacks the deep behavioral and intent data that makes paid social actually work. When you run a...
Hey Reader, A founder asked me last week how to respond to someone pitching a Shopify quiz app – 10x more expensive than existing competitors, no unique technology, no obvious edge. He expected me to help him dismantle the idea. Instead, I told him: I don't care about the idea. Here's the truth most early-stage founders don't want to hear: your product quality is almost never your real competitive advantage. You can have a worse product at a higher price and still win – if you have...