Last week, I happened to come across a recorded video of SaaSBOOMi Annual 2021, that made me reflect on what we are doing at Notesally. The video by Jen Abel was about how to approach the problem of getting the first few customers from the US market. This blog post is a list of my learnings regarding the Go-to-market strategy from the video.

1. Scale only after you have got a working process

I have seen this advice earlier when I read the book Start Up, Scale Up, Screw Up by Jurgen Appelo. Jen, in her talk, emphasized the need for co-founders to be actively involved and to lead the initial customer acquisition. After we find the approach that works, it makes sense to scale that approach by adding more people to the sales and marketing process.

2. Selling to ONE > Selling to EVERYONE

As a self-bootstrapped startup, we do not have the money to prospect every segment in the market. Even as a buyer, I am more likely to buy from someone who serves people like me exclusively because I think they understand my problems better than someone who serves the entire world. Jen’s talk helped me to reflect on the ideal customer profile that we want to serve.

3. Replacing the competitor is not the only option

In the talk, Saurabh from Mesh made quite a few interesting points. He made me realize that you need not always replace the competitor. There is a possibility that you can even co-exist as a complementary solution in the customer’s organization, in addition to the competitor’s solution. Hence, we do not need to run away from a prospect just because they closed a deal with the competitor.

4. Have a scientific approach

When we launch a SaaS product, it involves a lot of assumptions and bets. Jen emphasized the need to establish a metrics ecosystem that will guide our experiments. Also, rather than going by our assumptions, it makes sense to validate our assumptions based on our prospect touch-points ourselves. This creates a scientific basis for our business. This way, the whole GTM exercise is a treasure hunt fueled by our curiosity to know more about the customers.

These were the most important learnings for me on the topic of Go to market. I love being a part of SaaSBOOMi community as they provide me actionable content. If you are a founder from India, you should join SaaSBOOMi too.

Picture Credit: Kelly Sikkema