B2B Founders Can't Reach Their Buyers
Founders building B2B products struggle significantly with customer acquisition and market validation. Reaching target users, particularly Heads of Departments and engineering teams, proves exceptionally difficult, resulting in low response rates and hindering the ability to validate product-market fit. This challenge spans various industries and necessitates exploring alternative outreach strategies.
SOURCES (60)
“Okay sales people; please help me I work in a SLED Agency, and every time we reach out to a vendor through their website, our request ends up getting sent to small business and then small business insists on meeting with us, and then realize…”
“Most sales teams in companies are B2B. B2C sales is accomplished primarily through public marketing.”
“Something I've learned running a B2b saas in Korea, the market here is just small when you start building something new, everyone draws that imaginary revenue curve, right? "How far could this thing actually go?" I did the same. But I eventually realized that in Korea with a fairly closed business culture and a small number of startups to sell to it's genuinely hard to grow meaningful revenue with b2b saas And honestly, that's okay. I was never chasing a massive exit. What”
“One thing that stands out here is that your real competitor is not another SaaS tool, it is Google Sheets and the habit of using it. That changes how you should message everything, from your LinkedIn posts to the cold emails. Most people trying to create a new category fail because they explain the product instead of explaining the cost of the current workaround. Show what breaks when the sheet gets too big, or when the one person who understands it leaves the team. That is what makes someone st”
“Wanted to see if anyone has had success doing this - in my industry my customers are large enterprises where relationships are a big piece as a lot of what we do is commodity/availabikity. For a few that I’ve worked directly with, I’ve been pretty frank about how my commission plan worked. Our company has a weird nuance where if we collect upfront payments we get that credit via an amortized amount based on the contract term - so if they’re signing a short term and want to upfront the payment, I”
“I'd rather spend time where people are actively trying to solve something than trying to interrupt them with marketing. For B2B especially, a handful of high-intent conversations often outperform thousands of impressions.”
“Bootstrapped auto book to 1K users/7M$ rev solo. Hit same wall, my take: hire commission + equity sales first to prove the channel, then bring co-founder later once revenue justifies it. Don't stop dev ---- just pause features, ship fixes. Sales rep closing warm leads > co - founder gamble right now....”
“This. I think we need to try master one channel (or give it sufficient effort and time to consider it as not-suitable one) before moving on to the next one.”
“100 can be enough to learn something, but I wouldn’t treat it as a guaranteed prediction for all 700. The biggest issue is whether those 100 companies are representative of the larger list. If they all come from one industry, company size or region, the result may reflect that segment more than the message itself. I’d test smaller batches with one variable changed at a time: same audience and medium, different message. Then keep the winning version and test it again on another batch before scali”
“Hey, I have a Task to get a client for an Event. Like we organize Corporate or Big Event for Organization how can I get a client ? Which platform will be the best for getting leads? A B2B high Ticket Client? Google Ads, Linkedin or Meta ? From my side Meta is not worth it because Big Firm Manager is not scrolling on Social Media. submitted by /u/okfalcn [link] [comments]”
“Don’t use a cofounder to patch a function you haven’t made repeatable yet. For the next 4–6 weeks, freeze everything except customer-blocking fixes, pick one narrow ICP, and personally run a documented outbound, demo, and close loop until you know the objections and conversion points. Then hire a founding seller on a paid trial with a concrete output such as 20 qualified conversations plus a written playbook; a cofounder only makes sense if they bring durable distribution or customer access you”
“The issue isn't the software roadmap; it's that you are letting the prospect's messy, internal manual tracking dictate your product architecture. If their approval or compliance step is different, don't build custom branches—force them to standardize their workflow logic to match your clean baseline before they onboard.”
“Cold outbound fails here because leaders don't want to "validate your problem"—they want their leaking revenue stopped. Stop asking for feedback chats; instead, look at their public tracking setups, spot where their data visibility is actively broken, and send them a 2-sentence breakdown of the exact operational hole they are missing.”
“I’ve got a b2b digital product that sells really well during the week, but sales die in the weekends. Im considering reducing spend on Friday afternoon and turning back up on Sunday evening. Meta’s budget scheduling tool only lets you increase spend (of course it does) and I don’t want to use a third party ad management tool. I will potentially use Claude to do basic budget increase/decreasing however. My concern is that dropping budget for the weekend only will negatively impact the scaling I a”
“So you can DEMONSTRATE SOC 2 type 2 rigor - even self certify for CMMc type 2. It’s the audit.”
“Since you mentioned B2B I thought that could make sense. Even final users have gpt or Gemini subscriptions with access to top models. I would think those would eat up most of your costs. I'm finishing - if ever 😁- a multi purpose ai assistant on a schedule and I'm considering keeping/throwing out that option. Project called Jarvis if you'd like to have a look jarvisloop.com (not really ready for subscribers yet)”
“You don't get to tell a customer how to operate their business. If you're not building a measure of extensibility into an priduct, you're going to have a hard time in B2B world It's also historically very common for Enterprise licenses to be accompanied by some consulting contracts for customization/integration --you just have to have a pricing model and a team that can support this deployment process. At the early stages, I'd say figure out what the core product is... and al”
“I keep seeing this pattern in B2B products: a prospect likes the core product, then asks for one workflow that is just different enough to block the deal. Not a giant feature request. More like: their approval step is different the report needs one compliance field risk, billing, or fraud logic uses a field you don't support yet they want the demo to match how their team actually works The tempting move is to say "yes, that's on the roadmap" and hope product can catch up. But t”
“Why no one talks about the challenge with sales engineering and GTM. I see a lot of posts suggesting people are crushing it, and maybe some are for sure, but the majority are useless tools the founders themselves don't even use. This was my first mistake as an Engineer & TPM with 10+ years experience, I thought I knew everything. Working in corporate teaches you nothing about building a company, learning to measure success without generating revenue, etc. After years of building, and lau”
“Also consider the switching costs. Potential customers might love your product, but the switching costs and existing contracts they're in are probably way too high to consider migrating. This is a really high bar to overcome. You're in a crowded market. Do you have easy migration tools from Greenhouse, Workday, Ashby, Lever, iMIS (ugh), etc etc etc etc etc etc etc?”
“One thing that helped me was talking to users before trying to market to everyone. Those conversations made it much easier to refine the message because I started using the words customers actually used. A clear message beats a big marketing budget, especially in the early stages.”
“Hey reddit fam Looking for some advice around talking to initial users about our hypothesis, we’ve spoken to a few smaller businesses to validate the problem and we can definitely spot the inefficiencies we’re trying to fix. We have a family business and my mum has worked around this problem for years, some background, she operates a local business which involves dealing with clients and recording interactions on manual registers and then passing on that information to operations via post it not”
“We build a hiring platform. Bootstrapped, pre-revenue, about a year in. On one side, things are moving. Customers take our demos. Some give real feedback. Recruiters talk to us as a second audience. That side feels alive. On the other side, we have pitched about 15 VCs and accelerator style programs. Real noes. Not maybes. Some came after a full pitch. A lot came from a form or an email, before anyone ever heard us speak. Not one came with a reason. Here is the part that is hard to explain. It i”
“just made the switch from safety sales to an environmental health and safety role at a former customer. It’s given me a fair bit of insight as to what the DMs are doing when they’re falling off the face of the earth. Turns out, some are just reading your email and saying “he took forever to get me a quote on this, fuck this I’ll deal with this later”(it was 2 days from last convo to email and it was never dealt with and fell by the wayside) We still need the product lol. Or they’re talking your”
“Growth owns a number and can touch whatever moves it, marketing usually just owns a channel. That "allowed to touch pricing and onboarding" mandate is the real dividing line imo.”
“Being cheaper than your competitors as your only competitive advantage isn’t the best spot to be in IMO. Another competitive edge would make it easier to convince those customers to switch. It’s not easy but maybe you can talk to your one customer to figure out if there’s something that they would find useful. Maybe you already have something that your competitors don’t and that’s why they chose you.”
“Im trying to target Dynamics crm users but struggling. My main focus in events, email outreach, with LinkedIn ads and retargeting Anything I'm doing wrong? submitted by /u/AwakenedRudely [link] [comments]”
“I am a startup founder and the skills needed here are highly correlated to PM skills. I want to know, how you find people within your ICP to get into as many conversations as you can? Everywhere I read is the same - "talk to customers", "validate your idea before building" etc. etc. I try to find people to talk to that can help me understand their problems and day-to-day in general. No matter how hard I try, the best I could do was talk to 15 people within an ICP and it did n”
“I am selling my own consulting services and I am new to sales. Recently, a business associate introduced me to a reputable firm in the Middle East. We had our first Zoom call with about 10 people in the room. I focused most of my attention on the head guy (the clear economic buyer) while being careful to respectfully engage their existing vendor so I didn't alienate them. The meeting went incredibly well. The buyer gave a lot of positive feedback. At the end, my business associate asked abou”
“I agree with this; I have sold to a few big PE clients. When there is a burning need, the top buyer personas can push compliance to complete a strong security questionnaire. With a promising or a giving timeline on SOC 2 or ISO. Where it's a deal breaker is in healthcare, where you NEED to have HIPAA. Also, don't say we don't have certs, say we're working on it. In the meantime, we can fill out the security questionnaire, which has worked well with our other customers. But others”
“It sounds like you're in a tough spot, but it’s great that you have interest from potential clients and investors! Since your customers are asking for certifications you can’t afford, consider two strategies: **Leverage Partnerships**: Look for partnerships with companies or individuals who already have the required certifications. This could help you gain credibility without incurring the costs yourself. Sometimes, you can negotiate a revenue-sharing model or other mutual benefits. **Focus”
Sounds more like "owner of HyperStart trying to find new customers"
“What is the problem you’re trying to solve by keeping it from circulating? That will help us provide feedback. What is the situation where it _shouldn’t_ be circulated? If you have sales or client teams, the roadmap is pretty critical and needs to be shared externally.”
“You've already built three businesses with the same playbook, so the playbook itself probably isn't broken. The more likely culprit is that the distribution channels you used before have shifted under you - organic reach on X and LinkedIn is lower than it was, search results are more crowded, and communities that used to welcome founder content are frequently kicking people out for being self promotional. Try to pick one channel where your target customers already gather and talk about t”
“So… went to an industry event, and good news: got like 80+ business cards. Pretty much everyone said stuff like, "looking for new suppliers," and "keep in touch." Then I started emailing people in the order I met them and hoo boy 😂 A few never replied. A couple told me they weren't sourcing anymore. One company apparently hadn't imported this product in over a year. There's another strategy down the drain, I guess. How do you guys prioritize follow-ups after a tr”
“You try inSitu Sales? They offer B2B portals that are a little easier for your budget. It's $200/month and meets all 3 of the basic requirements you listed.”
“I’ve been building a small B2B data tool focused on Brazilian companies, and someone recently gave me a pretty honest piece of feedback: “Finding companies is easy. The hard part is knowing why you should contact them.” That stuck with me. My original idea was simple: help people find companies by niche and location, including small businesses that barely show up online. In Brazil, there are a lot of real, active companies with no website, no LinkedIn page, sometimes not even a proper Google pro”
“I'm mid-experiment on this exact problem in a different niche (bookkeeping software, my people are solo founders who hate finance admin), so notes from the trenches rather than a victory lap: Full disclosure beats stealth, every time. I tried the subtle route too and it either got filtered or smelled wrong. What's been working is answering the actual question in the thread first, then one line of "I'm biased, I built something in this space." People are fine with a builder”
“What kind of product is it? If it’s B2C do u use it as your daily driver? If not why not?”
“Hey everyone, big fan of the sub. Long-time lurker. I'm in the process of launching my own company, and I was interested in how everyone here handles their traction channels and distribution strategies. About me, I'm launching GiState, an AI Harness platform focusing on session continuity between cross-platform models. Think saved state in a video game, but for your AI session to pick up in any other model exactly where you left off. I'm currently testing and getting ready t”
“The harsh reality is that most small businesses simply don't have the bandwidth to analyse things at this level. When you're the founder, marketer, customer service rep, and accountant all at once, it's just too much even with AI tools. This is exactly why corporates have: - Entire data analysis teams - Dedicated CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) specialists - Outside consultants and advisors All of which costs hundreds of thousands a month. The more specialised eyes you have lookin”
“In X, I see it's easy to go viral and stuff and there seems to be engagement if you are consistent (and can pay for the plan and do hot takes)while in linkedin, I saw many posts on how linkedin people often don't engage but then reach out when they have a problemAnyone here who tried both, do let me know what's working for you folks”
“That context helps. If the waterfall is already proven, make the scorecard about one complete weekly loop—customer insight → derivative assets → distribution/community replies → one tracked conversion event—rather than hours worked; a short paid work sample using one real input will show whether the person can run the system without quality or measurement falling apart.”
“Hey guys, I'm the Founder of Breachday.io , and I recently launched my BCP/IR Tabletop Exercise Platform on my LinkedIn. I had a few leads based on my connections but none of them have expressed interest. I genuinely feel like this idea can be very helpful for the space and could potentially be very popular for small to midsized companies. Background : I'm a GRC Info Sec Analyst who's been in Cyber for a little over 5 years and I saw a need for an Incident Response & Business Con”
“Being 21 isn't the problem. Acting like you know things you don't is. I've done this a lot over the last few years. Go into the first calls with a bunch of questions and no deck. When they ask something you don't know, say so and send the answer later. That's totally normal.”
“hah, this isnt the same thing but im looking forward to fully transitioning away from the founder space. Pros and cons to every audience+industry.”
“You probably don’t need another process, closing line, follow up hack etc. What most B2B sales people that are good and not great lack is actual business acumen. At its core it’s all about how a business makes money, saves money, decreases risk and increases clout. Holistically it helps to understand all of that but you can start with one of those subjects. If you sell to public companies the information is often out there in public. For example I was selling into Wells Fargo right now I would b”
“No cold calling, no webinars. Mostly Reddit posts like this one, some cold outreach on LinkedIn, and referrals from past clients. Nothing fancy, just showing the actual builds and letting people reach out if it's relevant to them.”
“it has indeed become a marketing/sales cliche'. When we hear something over and over, we go against our human tendency of rubbing it off or ignoring it, start to 2X or 4X our efforts implementing it”
“I'm building a solution for growing businesses, preferably restaurants and office/warehouse businesses. I currently cold-call restaurants and arrange a meeting to show them my demo and ask for feedback and opinions, but I feel like I'm the bottleneck of the whole process. I'm not confident enough to make a good pitch to people even when I'm not intending to sell and I feel like if someone else does this part he/she could yield more meetings than I do. At the moment I'm not ai”
“My company is a bit unique in that we are doing things for a lot of industries and our biggest one that we are visible in and has an end user is the fashion industry. We don't want to just focus on the fashion industry though at this point and our big KPI is just to raise awareness with Gen Z. I'm trying to make our Branding strategy but I'm questioning myself. First, I wouldn't know how to segment this audience, but with this KPI isn't our target just Gen Z in general? For n”
“Hi folks, I work in an APAC manufacturing/industrial business that has a very niche target market - with only around 500-5000 other manufacturing companies in the country that would buy our different product lines. They also would only buy our product or shop around every 5 years or so. What's the best way of measuring whether your marketing efforts are working during the very long sales cycle? Enquiries as leads is one way, but I'd like to get more insights on whether our ads, sale enab”