The problem has been known forever and for a very long time influenced the quality of life of people living in Viganella, both from a logistical and psychological perspective. Only in 1999, the then-mayor Pier Franco Midali decided to tackle the issue once and for all.

A task force was formed with the goal of bringing the sun to Viganella, even during the dark months. The solution found was simple yet brilliant: install a giant mirror above the village's mountains to reflect the sun's rays toward the valley below.

The project came to life in 2006 and was a huge success. The story made headlines worldwide, and from that day on, the citizens of Viganella could finally enjoy sunlight and warmth even during winter months.

Creativity is a process

The story of Viganella's mirror is perfect for introducing this new deep dive in Business Revealed: how do you find the perfect idea for a startup? Or better yet: where do you start looking?

The answer is simple: by following rules.

Very often, people think the perfect idea is the result of lightning creativity, something that comes suddenly and somewhat by chance (think Newton's apple). However, if you observe any creative art, it becomes immediately clear that brilliant ideas never germinate in rule-free environments.

In theater and later in cinema, Aristotle's three-act structure defined precise rules for screenplay writing, a process that still determines the success of most films in circulation today. In cartoons or TV series, comic duos are designed following standard parameters (Laurel and Hardy, Pinky and The Brain, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner). Not for nothing did Orson Welles state that "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations."

For this reason, the Viganella case is emblematic. The village's problem was clear: due to topographical reasons, the sun couldn't reach the valley for 83 days a year. How do you find the brilliant idea to solve this problem? By following rules that are part of a creative process: first, a study was done on the territory's conformation, then a study on available technologies, necessary economic resources, and so on. Only after defining these parameters was it possible to identify the most effective and convenient solution.

Searching for underserved needs

But let's return to the initial question: how do you find the perfect idea for a startup? In this case, the set of rules provided by the "startup manual" involves a clear and defined approach. Over the years, technology has changed and will continue to change the methods and research tools, but the target doesn't change: understanding who your company's future customers are, what they want, and how to make them happy.

Unless you have the intention and financial strength to become Nike's next competitor, the first step to reaching the right business idea is finding empty or still poorly defended market spaces where you can create new opportunities. In more technical terms, what you need to do is identify and analyze so-called "underserved needs."

As the word itself suggests, underserved needs are all those needs that aren't optimally satisfied by the market through existing services and products. These are all those requirements that people have, but which currently aren't covered at all, are only partially satisfied, or could be better satisfied. Identifying one of these needs is the first big step toward working on an idea that can guarantee long life to your startup. This is where your creative process must begin.

Customers want jobs to be done

A theoretical approach to underserved needs necessarily passes through Clayton Christensen and his Jobs to Be Done Theory. According to the Harvard Business School professor, customers don't just purchase products but they "hire" them to do a specific "job" in their lives. In other words, people don't buy products or services for their technical characteristics, but they do so with the intention of solving a problem or improving a situation that involves them.

Around Christensen's theory, a real framework has been created that allows investigating all those jobs that still today don't find the most suitable solutions on the market to hire for their execution.

The jobs that will emerge from applying the framework will lay the foundation for identifying the underserved needs you need and that you can subsequently analyze through data obtained from the tools I'll tell you about later.

But first, here are the framework elements to analyze to get your thinking started:

1. What problems do people still struggle to solve today and for which no optimal solution exists or only partially exists? Answering this question allows you to identify gaps present in various markets and especially to understand the real value of a potential solution for future customers (e.g., Airbnb filled the need for affordable and flexible accommodations, Canva simplified access to graphic tools for non-designers).

2. What is the best context where a product or service can best perform its job? Instead of immediately focusing on the characteristics and specifications of a product/service, it's fundamental to understand where its use will actually be required.

3. What are the functional, emotional, and social dimensions of each job? The functional dimension defines the practical problem that using the product solves; the emotional dimension establishes what sensory emotions a product provokes when purchased by a customer; the social dimension specifies the type of image a person conveys to others when using a certain product.

Focusing on these aspects helps concentrate on all those unsolved problems and difficulties that don't have an adequate solution and therefore make life complicated for many people (potential customers).

You are your first customer

The simplest way to decipher the elements of the Jobs to Be Done Framework is to test yourself. You too are a potential customer and you too experience difficulties performing certain activities every day.

"Scratch Your Own Itch"

As Jason Fried from 37signals puts it: "The best way to build something people want is to build something you want yourself. When you're solving your own problem, you understand the nuances, the frustrations, and what a good solution actually looks like."

Source: Scratch Your Own Itch - 37signals Podcast

Below I've grouped a series of questions that will be useful for taking this more introspective journey:

1. What jobs do you try to perform every day? Among these, is there one you can't complete or whose final result doesn't satisfy you 100%? (e.g., watering plants, making the bed, preparing dinner)

2. Where do you notice an absence of consumption? Try to understand what areas people don't use existing products or services in, this will help you discover unmet needs and unsolved problems (e.g., why doesn't anyone buy smooth penne pasta? why do few people buy 8K TVs? why doesn't anyone buy travel egg holders?)

3. Do you know DIY solutions adopted on a large scale? The spread of alternative ideas to solve certain problems is an important indicator of dissatisfaction with available or completely unavailable market options.

4. What tasks do you tend to avoid most? Identify those activities that people find annoying or want to avoid (e.g., no one wants to cook every day, no one wants to waste time standing in line or finding parking)

5. Do you know of alternative uses people make of existing products? Observe how customers use products in unconventional ways, but with equal success (e.g., a plate used as a saucer, a lamp used as a coat hanger).

Tools and data

After finding answers to the questions above, best practice would have you do the same work with as many people as possible, or at least with what could be a hypothetical target audience. Interviews remain a powerful tool for investigating consumer needs, but the advancement of AI-based technologies allows performing similar work by leveraging the enormous amount of data available online.

The best startup ideas aren't buried underground waiting to be discovered. They're sitting on the surface, scattered everywhere, waiting for someone to pick them up. Most people think finding startup ideas is like mining for gold, but the reality is much simpler - the opportunities are already validated and hiding in plain sight.

There are many tools that can help you find the same answers on massive samples. Among these, I'll start by mentioning Subreddit Stats (very useful for having precise analytics on various Reddit subreddits), Answer The Public (generates the most requested questions on keywords you want to analyze), and Minea (analyzes online and social media advertisements from major ecommerce retailers and helps understand their positioning).

Beyond individual tools, my advice is to follow a comprehensive framework that combines traditional research with AI-powered discovery methods. I've structured this into 4 main research approaches that will help you identify underserved needs systematically.

1. What's trending?

First, you need to understand what the current trends are. What are the most discussed topics and most talked-about products? Among the resources I prefer are:

Pinterest Trends - Thanks to Pinterest's data platform, you can explore popular trends from many geographical areas and do vertical research on keywords that interest you.

For each topic, you'll have access to data regarding interest over time, related trends, involved demographic groups (divided by age and gender), and the most popular pins. By focusing on these last ones, you'll be able to observe the resonance each topic has with the public and the predominant perception the public has of those topics.

Google Trends + Glimpse - Like Pinterest, Google also has its data platform that analyzes trends and keywords by comparing information obtained from Google, Google Images, Google News, Google Shopping, and YouTube. The main differences with Pinterest Trends concern the type of target and amount of data (not quality): Google has access to much more information on individual searches compared to Pinterest, but they're not necessarily more pertinent for research purposes.

To improve this aspect, my suggestion is to install the Glimpse extension from the Chrome store. Glimpse makes Google Trends much more powerful and precise in trend research and analysis: it analyzes more complex search patterns providing not only related searches but also related questions (very useful for identifying any unresolved problems linked to that topic), allows analyzing the same topics on major social networks, and proposes predictions on future trend development.

Exploding Topics - Tool very similar to Google Trends, but with greater focus on predicting long-term trends and analyzing emerging trends. In 2024, the company was acquired by Semrush, which enhanced the platform by increasing the number of online searches, social conversations, and other data sources accessible.

2. Unresolved problems and potential solutions

Once you've found the trend you think has the most potential or that interests you most (you can also leverage the answers you gave yourself within the JBTD Framework), you need to extract all possible information about activities performed around that trend. Reddit is an extremely powerful platform for searching this type of information and identifying any unresolved problems among its users.

The ultimate tool in this case is undoubtedly GummySearch. This tool groups and divides all Reddit's various subreddits by categories and topics, a precious resource for finding the right idea or understanding market gaps on certain products or services. For each subreddit, the platform identifies the problems and difficulties most discussed among users interacting on a specific trend, the main advice people request, and the solutions given to requests by various Reddit users.

Advanced Research Techniques:

Beyond GummySearch, I've developed specific search strategies that can uncover hidden opportunities:

• Run targeted Google searches: Use site:reddit.com "is there a tool that" + your niche. This reveals users actively seeking solutions that don't exist yet.

• Search for workflow hacks: Look for posts where people are improvising solutions in comments - these represent clear product opportunities.

• Monitor niche communities: Join Facebook groups with specific focuses like "Notion for teachers" or "real estate automation."

AI-Powered Discovery Methods:

Modern research combines traditional analysis with AI assistance. Here are the most effective approaches I use:

1. Direct AI consultation: Ask ChatGPT specific questions like "Give me 10 tedious workflows a [job title] does that AI could automate."

2. Personal usage pattern analysis: Review your own ChatGPT conversation history. Repeated prompt patterns often indicate product opportunities.

3. Friction point identification: Analyze your daily browser behavior to identify copy/paste actions between tools - each friction point is a potential startup idea.

4. Automated Influencer Feed Scoring
   I built a workflow with Clay and Apify that starts from a curated list of influencers, scrapes all their latest posts, and runs a scoring model. The scoring compares each post both against my personal content strategy pillars and against engagement metrics like reaction counts. The result is a prioritized backlog of fresh post ideas that align with my positioning while leveraging formats currently resonating with the audience.

Marketplace Intelligence:

Professional service platforms reveal manual workflows ready for automation:

• Browse service marketplaces: Fiverr and Upwork services like "I'll use ChatGPT to write your product descriptions" indicate manual processes waiting to become products.

• Analyze user feedback patterns: 2-star Shopify or WordPress plugins with high usage typically signal market demand with poor execution.

• Use specialized discovery tools: Platforms like Ideabrowser.com scan multiple sources to identify high-potential opportunities.

By analyzing the data from these sources, you can understand whether various user requests correspond to existing market solutions, or you'll have clear evidence that current products don't adequately address consumer needs.

3. Who's talking about these trends?

To understand consumer desires and requests even better, the next step is going to the square. Obviously not a real square, but what have become online squares: comment sections. Needless to say, this would be endless work, so my advice is to use your preferred virtual assistant (Perplexity AI, ChatGPT, Claude AI, etc.) and have it give you a list of the main creators currently talking about the trend you're investigating.

Advanced Comment Analysis:

I've found that comment sections are goldmines of product feedback and feature requests:

• YouTube review comments: Users frequently describe exactly what they wish existing tools could do - this becomes your product roadmap.

• High-engagement content analysis: Videos with 60k+ views typically have comment sections filled with specific use-case requests and friction points.

• Tutorial gap identification: When someone creates "How to automate X using 8 different tools," there's clearly an opportunity for a single, integrated solution.

Automated Pipeline

Using Gumloop or n8n, I run an automated pipeline that starts from either a curated influencer list or a topic tag. The workflow fetches all recent videos, ranks them by engagement, extracts every comment, and feeds the corpus to Gemini (or another long-context LLM) to surface trends, unmet needs, and concrete feature requests. The output is a prioritized insight report with examples, frequency, and suggested product angles.

Real-World Behavior Research:

Some of the most valuable insights come from observing actual work patterns:

• Calendar pattern analysis: Your own recurring meetings, prep time, and repetitive agendas often reveal software opportunities, especially when you're copying the same templates repeatedly.

• Small business observation: Local businesses often manage critical processes in spreadsheets. Whether it's a dentist's appointment system or a gym's membership tracking, Excel-based workflows frequently indicate automation opportunities.

• Professional service interviews: Solo practitioners and small agencies often receive repetitive requests from clients that they find tedious but necessary - these represent clear productization opportunities.

Professional Network Intelligence:

LinkedIn and professional networks reveal emerging market needs:

• Job title trend analysis: Growing industries create new roles, and new roles create new workflow requirements. Ask yourself: "What would make this person 10x faster at their job?"

• Emerging role identification: New job titles like "AI Operations Lead" or "Growth Product Manager" indicate evolving workflows that likely lack proper tooling.

• Community listening: Industry-specific Discord and Slack groups are filled with people asking "does anyone have a tool for..." or describing manual workflow solutions.

You can then select videos and posts that have generated considerable interactions, studying comments and opinions under this content. This part is very important for your project because it will help you put yourself even more in the shoes of someone looking for a solution to a problem they can't solve.

4. Anti-trends and Asymmetric Opportunities

The last piece of advice is a real plot twist. Where there are trends, there are also anti-trends that can in turn become new trends. In response to a hyper-connected world, for example, Dumb Phones were born; to respond to an ultra-minimalist decorating style, the charm of vintage objects returned; vinyl records started selling again.

But there's something even more powerful than anti-trends: asymmetric opportunities. These are extreme, concentrated bets that look irrational to everyone else but create massive competitive advantages.

Learning from Asymmetric Winners:

History's biggest business successes often came from counterintuitive decisions:

• Hubspot focused entirely on free educational content when competitors were building sales teams. They produced 750+ blog posts before hiring their first salesperson. Result: 61% lower customer acquisition costs and a current valuation of $25B.

• Costco deliberately carries only 4,000 product varieties when Walmart stocks 100,000+. This seemingly limiting constraint generates 2-3x more revenue per square foot than competitors.

• Five Guys serves made-to-order burgers with zero automation while the industry optimizes for speed. Their "slow food" approach creates 3x the revenue per store compared to traditional fast food.

The Asymmetric Opportunity Framework:

When everyone zigs, successful companies zag. Here's how to identify these opportunities:

1. Identify industry sacred cows - What if you completely eliminated something everyone considers essential?

2. Find the hidden cost center - What painful activity do businesses accept as unavoidable?

3. Invert the status metric - If everyone optimizes for speed, optimize for thoroughness

4. Weaponize a constraint - Turn your limitation into your competitive advantage

5. Find the emotional gap - What feeling is missing from the standard customer experience?

6. Go irrationally niche - Focus so narrowly that competitors think you're crazy

Modern Examples:

In today's AI-saturated market, some companies are finding success through deliberate "AI-free" positioning, betting that algorithm fatigue will create demand for human-centric solutions. Others are succeeding by adding intentional friction to products in industries obsessed with seamless experiences.

The Key Insight: If your idea doesn't make some people uncomfortable or seem irrational, it's probably not asymmetric enough to create lasting competitive advantage.

All the tools listed for finding current trends are obviously valid for understanding anti-trends and asymmetric opportunities. The advantage is entering markets that are initially less competitive and allow you to reach highly engaged, passionate audiences who often become the most loyal customers.

From Discovery to Validation: The Complete Framework

All this enormous amount of data will be fundamental for refining your research on underserved needs with the highest business potential. But discovering an opportunity is only half the battle - you need to validate it before building.

The 7-Question Validation Framework:

Based on years of analyzing successful startups, I've developed a systematic approach to validating discovered opportunities:

1. What's a fast-growing underserved niche?

2. What's a significant pain-point for them?

3. How do most people currently solve it?

4. Why doesn't the current solution work well?

5. How would you solve it differently?

6. How can you build this with healthy margins (50%+)?

7. What is your unfair advantage?

Quick Validation Techniques:

Before diving into full product development, use these methods to test your assumptions:

• Legacy tool analysis: Browse G2 or Capterra for highly-rated tools in traditional categories. If there's no modern AI integration, there's likely an opportunity to build the next-generation version.

• UX improvement opportunities: Find successful tools on Product Hunt or Gumroad that have traction but poor user experience. Often, better design and positioning can capture significant market share.

• Freelance market validation: Monitor Upwork job boards for recurring project types that involve manual AI-assisted work. High demand for manual services often indicates readiness for automated solutions.

The Validation Process:

The key is moving quickly from hypothesis to evidence. Start with the lightest possible validation methods before investing significant time or resources. Sometimes a simple landing page or a well-crafted survey can provide the validation you need to proceed with confidence.

When you're convinced of the result, you can move on to the full development phase of your idea, which involves market analysis, target definition, value proposition development, MVP creation, and all the other standard startup building blocks that will help you obtain more precise results in less time.

AI's contribution is evident in this new approach to researching underserved needs. However, as I mentioned above, technologies change research methods but don't change the fundamental objectives.

The other component that remains unchanged is the empathetic element: being capable of putting yourself in others' shoes, knowing how to observe what surrounds us (starting from our own daily experiences), remain key competencies for identifying the problems that still complicate the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. And that will ultimately determine whether your idea succeeds or fails.

Sources:

Clayton Christensen, Competing Against Luck (Harper Business, 2016)
"Know Your Customers' 'Jobs to Be Done'", Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan
"How to Identify an Underserved Need in the Market", Catherine Cote
"How I use Reddit and AI to find winning startup ideas", Greg Isenberg
"How I use Pinterest and Google to find $1M+ startup ideas", Greg Isenberg
ContentGrip Audience Building Framework Analysis, ContentGrip

I began this documentation process sometime before my son Lorenzo's birth, creating a catalog of fundamental rules and guidelines—principles that I've developed throughout my life and career to make better decisions and continuously improve. I've created a framework for better decision-making by categorizing past mistakes and documenting what worked.

The catalyst for documenting these principles was the birth of my son Lorenzo. Beyond personal improvement, I wanted to leave him something meaningful—an intellectual legacy of hard-earned lessons that might guide him one day. While these principles were initially collected for him, I believe they could prove valuable to others on their journeys.

I've refined and added to these principles during this year's retrospective. While they were initially personal notes, I've decided to share them publicly. I hope they prove valuable to others just starting their journey or finding a similar path. Whether you're building a business, developing your career, or seeking personal growth, these hard-earned lessons might help you avoid some of my pitfalls.

1. Realistic Expectations

When evaluating an activity, it's necessary to look at objective data and face problems realistically without unjustifiably expecting or hoping for external help.

2. Work Only on Ideas You Believe In

It's essential to work only on ideas you strongly believe in, as this will help overcome difficult moments and enable greater involvement from others.

3. Do Instead of Search

Define specific moments in the day for research and specific moments for action. Don't allow these moments to interchange; ensure that action is the predominant element.

4. Don't Let Fear Hold You Back

Don't stop to think about what others will think or how you'll appear if you make this decision. Do what you think is right to achieve a specific goal.

5. Do Instead of Appear

When deciding whether to participate in an event, evaluate the actual value it can generate. Otherwise, it's better to avoid wasting time and use that time to become a protagonist.

6. Exposure is the Foundation of Sales

Don't think about reputation or the past. Just pursue the objective with the necessary actions.

7. Money Matters

Focus primarily on high-leverage activities that directly impact financial growth. Prioritize tasks that generate the most significant returns and avoid getting distracted by low-impact activities, no matter how interesting they might seem.

8. Start from You

Success begins with understanding your strengths and limitations. Recognize your boundaries honestly, then decide whether to develop missing skills yourself or bring in external expertise. This self-awareness is fundamental for effective growth.

9. You Are Alone

As a founder, understand that you are fundamentally alone in your journey. No one else shares your complete vision or bears the same responsibility. While others can offer advice, ultimate decisions and their consequences rest solely on your shoulders.

10. Start Right Away

Don't wait for the perfect moment - take immediate action on opportunities and ideas when they arise.

11. Curiosity as Engine

Let curiosity drive continuous learning and exploration of new possibilities and opportunities.

12. Create More Opportunity to Have Fortune

Actively create multiple pathways for success by expanding your network, pursuing various initiatives, and maintaining visibility in your industry. The more opportunities you create, the higher the likelihood of encountering favorable circumstances.

13. Constant Practice, Driven by Passion

Exceptional results come only through consistent, deliberate practice. This level of dedication is sustainable only when fueled by genuine passion - it's the passion that enables the thousands of hours needed for mastery.

14. Love, Focus, Meticulous Care

Approach your work with obsessive attention to detail and deep focus.

15. Invest in the Future

Focus on building long-term assets rather than chasing immediate revenue. Creating sustainable systems, developing intellectual property, and building strong foundations take time but generate exponential returns compared to quick gains.

16. Take Risks

Embrace calculated risks as they're essential for extraordinary growth. Playing it safe leads to average results - breakthrough success requires stepping into uncertainty with courage and challenging established norms.

17. Results Are More Important Than Being Right

Act promptly and decisively to protect your investment and guide results toward success, even if it means facing conflicts or resistance. Truth and reality matter more than being right.

18. Dedicate Time to Activities Important for Your Goals

Prioritize and allocate time specifically to activities that directly contribute to achieving your primary objectives.

19. Essentiality

Democritus reminded us that those who deal with few things find inner balance. Marcus Aurelius added that satisfaction comes from not scattering one’s energies in many directions.

Always ask whether an action is truly necessary. What is useless, what stems from unnecessary reasoning, should be removed. Every gesture must be proportional to its real weight.

In this way life becomes lighter. You avoid worrying about trivial tasks. You remain centered, lucid, essential.

[Original version: https://www.guidofrascadore.it/principles]

This new episode also talks about mistakes, but it also discusses successes — the kind that can transform a small local company into an internationally renowned scalable business. Dreaming costs nothing, which is why it's better to do it very seriously.

The mistake I'm starting with today to introduce this new episode of my newsletter is one of the most common during a startup's go-to-market phase: considering the achievement of product-market fit as the right moment to aim for exponential growth.

While this rule might work for many B2C companies, the same cannot be said for B2B. In this case, before starting to spend money on marketing and sales operations, it's important to focus on a step that's often ignored: the search for a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth model.

How to Increase Company Value

The strategic plan that should guide any startup toward building a repeatable, scalable, and profitable money machine goes hand in hand with the company's growth and economic valuation.

Along the journey, there will be many milestones to reach, but each one will have the main objective of reducing the risk level of key elements that characterize a company's activities.

The more a company can reduce its business risk levels, the more value it will gain, demonstrating reliability in the market and attracting capital from investors. But that's not all - focusing on risk reduction will help the company maintain a well-defined roadmap and prioritize objectives to achieve.

Is Your Product-Market Fit the Right One?

The very first element to examine for mitigating associated risks is the product-market fit hypothesis.

• Who is the product/service for?

• Will there really be people willing to pay to buy it?

• Does the product work?

• What benefits will customers derive from using it?

said physicist William Kelvin, and in this case too, the answer to these questions is obtained by measuring variables that help understand whether the identified product-market fit can lead to business scalability

The Role of Bookings

In the world of startups offering SaaS solutions, Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is one of the main indicators for measuring a company's long-term stability and growth. However, each metric plays a different role depending on a company's phase, and in the case of product-market fit, ARR isn't enough.

The most reliable indicator of whether the identified product-market fit represents a scalable hypothesis is "bookings." Bookings refer to the total number of contracts (recurring and non-recurring) or orders signed with customers in a given period. Keep in mind that contracts might include future commitments—revenue that hasn't been accounted for yet and, therefore, isn't included in ARR calculations.

When the number of bookings begins to grow consistently and exponentially, quarter after quarter, it signals that the company has begun its controlled, repeatable, and scalable growth. Consequently, the product-market fit hypothesis will be proven correct.

How to Analyze Bookings

The correct way to observe the influence of bookings on a SaaS company is to look at the quarterly trend of Net New ARR. This metric measures the net growth of recurring revenue and comprises 3 different components:

• New ARR (ARR obtained from new customers)

• Expansion ARR (ARR obtained from existing customers through upselling, cross-selling, or other forms of expansion)

• Contraction/Churn ARR (ARR lost due to customers who either reduced their subscription [contraction] or completely stopped using the service [churn])

The interesting aspect, beyond understanding how bookings influence startup growth, is seeing how each component provides valuable insights into a company's health:

• New ARR values indicate product-market fit and the effectiveness of customer acquisition strategies, including sales and marketing efficiency

• Expansion ARR trends demonstrate customer satisfaction and the ability to grow existing accounts

• Churn/Contraction ARR percentages reveal product stickiness, customer satisfaction, and overall retention strength

Bookings shouldn't be confused with CARR (Committed Annual Recurring Revenue). While bookings represent the total contract value signed in a period (including both recurring and non-recurring revenue), CARR specifically measures the guaranteed recurring annual revenue from active contracts, typically with terms of one year or longer. CARR provides visibility into secured future revenue streams but excludes one-time fees and short-term commitments that might be included in bookings.

Mistake to Avoid

Before moving to the next step, I want to share one more point about product-market fit and its pursuit. In many cases, startups make the error of beginning their search by immediately focusing all their attention on the product and its design while neglecting the most important element of all: Would anyone actually pay for this product?

The question seems simple and might appear obvious, but in many cases it isn't. Before dedicating hours and hours of work to designing and building a product/service, the best thing to do is "try to sell it."

How? Through interviews, surveys, engaging your network - any method to get product hypotheses feedback (Here you can find a long list of tools that you can use to validate your product and hypothesis). The responses might be completely unpredictable; you might find that the problem you're trying to solve isn't that important or that there are related needs no one had thought about.

Once you've found the best product hypothesis, then you can move on to its design and development, followed by actual sales testing.

How to Make a Business Repeatable

Once you've tested and validated your product-market fit hypothesis, it's time for the company to search for a repeatable, scalable, and profitable growth model. One of the biggest mistakes companies make at this stage is rushing through steps, skipping testing and validation of key elements.

There's no law establishing a deadline by which each validation must be completed - every startup moves at its own pace. The path to growing sales is never clearly marked, and there are many unknowns to resolve:

• Which stakeholders should be contacted during the sales process?

• Which pain points should we leverage?

• What types of messages should we use?

• What pricing should we apply?

• Which sales model best fits the service being sold?

Take a look at my past post on Finding the ICP, could be useful

The first step in addressing these questions is making the sales process repeatable. This means consistently acquiring new customers who are satisfied with the service and can eventually become promoters.

The simplest approach is to design a funnel. This should include 4 phases:

1. Top of funnel (where lead collection occurs)

2. Middle of funnel (where conversion begins)

3. Sales (where the sale is closed and leads become customers)

4. Customer success (where the customer delight process begins with the goal of turning customers into promoters)

A common error in funnel design is entrusting its management (and thus service sales) to non-founders. Only founders can truly understand feedback from initial sales attempts and recognize necessary improvements to the product/service being sold.

Defining the Playbook

Ideally, especially when founders aren't natural salespeople, they should be paired with what entrepreneur David Skok calls a "Pathfinder Trailblazer" - a special kind of salesperson who can guide founders through this sales exploration journey. The ultimate goal is to design a proper sales playbook that will be handed over to future hired salespeople.

Developing a playbook is crucial because it allows companies to document all the answers to the above questions and verify their effectiveness during initial sales.

During the design phase, it's important to focus on one target at a time and a single use case. There will be time to adjust gradually. The ideal approach is to start with early adopters (ECP) who will gradually lead the company toward its Ideal Customer Profile.

This process will reveal elements that define what is NOT a company's priority: unsuitable targets, wrong prospects, misleading messages, and more.

But the most interesting part will be understanding which product/service benefits potential customers find truly valuable and can be leveraged in the sales process: customers care relatively little about the product itself - what they want to know is whether it will solve their problems.

This step can only be considered complete when a startup can successfully sell the promised benefits through a repeatable process. This means knowing how to:

• Generate contacts following standardized processes

• Identify which stakeholders to contact to initiate sales

• Conduct sales effectively

• Apply appropriate pricing

• Most importantly, make the entire process accessible to future company salespeople

Enter the Sales Team

To validate the playbook and prove that the achieved repeatable process is correct, founders must make room for ordinary salespeople.

To do this, they must take on a different role compared to the testing phase where they were protagonists. They must focus on:

• Hiring new team members

• Training new recruits

• Ensuring they have all the proper tools to conduct sales successfully

It's usually advisable to start with a first hiring round of 2 standard sales reps. The exit criteria in this case are:

• Having at least one salesperson (preferably both) capable of following the designed playbook productively and autonomously

• Acquiring customers who are satisfied with the service/product purchased

Excessive interference from founders in the sales cycle is a classic error that can occur with the arrival of standard sales reps. The goal is to understand if the process established in the playbook is truly repeatable and prove it can succeed even with ordinary salespeople. This requires patience and careful observation of all errors that surface, as these could contribute to improving the sales strategy.

Time to Scale?

Once you've confirmed that the sales process is repeatable by hiring initial sales reps, it's time to determine if the business can also be scalable. This begins another hiring phase - the recommendation is to hire new salespeople in pairs (there's always a risk that one's productivity won't meet company expectations).

Every salesperson will have a technical (and human) limit regarding the number of clients they can interact with simultaneously. For this reason, when a company bases most of its success on salespeople, their number and productivity will effectively determine the growth rate of bookings.

Therefore, the company's priority becomes focusing its efforts on hiring a large number of salespeople. The most common mistake here is trying to save money—a savings that would condemn the business to flat, non-scalable growth.

The HR department takes on a crucial role at this point. Beyond ensuring the arrival of a high number of salespeople, recruiters must focus on:

• Hiring highly productive talent

• Recruiting staff capable of training new salespeople

• Finding new marketers who can help salespeople generate leads

• Bringing in new personnel who can follow the customer through post-acquisition phases

I could stop here in a world without artificial intelligence, but we all know that's not the case. AI models are gradually disrupting traditional sales processes, automating outbound journeys. For the recruiting world, this presents a double challenge:

1. The need for trained personnel to integrate AI technology into the company architecture

2. The need for a new type of salesperson - one capable of correctly interacting with AI tools and enabling real process optimization

Profitable or Not Profitable, That is the Question

The search for a growth model that is repeatable, scalable, and profitable is nearly complete. After validating product-market fit, designing a repeatable sales model, and demonstrating that this model can create a scalable business, one final piece remains: proving that the entire funnel is profitable.

To do this, the most important units economics to consider are:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

• Customer lifetime value (LTV)

• Churn rate

The objective is simple: make the LTV value greater than the CAC.

LTV calculation depends on the average customer lifetime. Initially, this data will be challenging to obtain, while the churn rate will be more evident. The formula for calculating customer lifetime is, therefore, 1/churn rate.

Having a low churn rate thus becomes fundamental for improving profitability and, consequently, company value.

Customer Churn Rate vs Revenue Churn Rate

There are multiple types of churn rates; for this analysis, it's essential to consider two key metrics:

1. Customer Churn Rate (the percentage of customers who stop using a service/product in a given time period)

2. Revenue Churn Rate (the percentage of recurring revenue lost due to customer cancellations or subscription downgrades)

To illustrate the difference between these metrics, consider this example: A company starts the month with two customers:

• Customer A: €1,000 MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)

• Customer B: €5,000 MRR

• Total MRR: €6,000

Scenario 1 - Customer A churns:

• Customer Churn Rate = (1 churned customer / 2 total customers) × 100 = 50%

• Revenue Churn Rate = (€1,000 lost MRR / €6,000 total MRR) × 100 = 16.7%

Scenario 2 - Customer B churns:

• Customer Churn Rate = (1 churned customer / 2 total customers) × 100 = 50%

• Revenue Churn Rate = (€5,000 lost MRR / €6,000 total MRR) × 100 = 83.3%

This example demonstrates why monitoring both metrics is crucial: Customer Churn Rate helps understand the rate of customer loss, while Revenue Churn Rate reveals the financial impact of those losses. A high-value customer churning can have a much more significant impact on the business than losing several lower-value customers.

For this reason, it's essential to:

1. Monitor both metrics separately

2. Analyze patterns in customer segments

3. Understand the specific reasons why customers, especially high-value ones, choose to leave

4. Develop targeted retention strategies based on customer value tiers

How to Achieve a Negative Churn Rate

A third metric to consider when discussing churn rate is negative net revenue churn rate (or negative net dollar churn).

Negative net revenue churn occurs when the expansion revenue from existing customers (through upselling, cross-selling, or price increases) exceeds the revenue lost from churned customers. In other words, the remaining customers generate more additional revenue than what was lost from churned customers.

For example, if:

• Starting MRR: €12,000 (Customer A: €7,000, Customer B: €5,000)

• Customer A churns: -€7,000

• Customer B expands to €7,000: +€2,000

• Net revenue change: -€5,000

• Expansion revenue: €2,000

• Revenue lost to churn: €7,000

A negative net revenue churn rate is considered a strong positive signal for companies, as it demonstrates the ability to grow revenue from the existing customer base, offsetting losses from customer churn.

To achieve negative net revenue churn, companies typically implement strategies such as:

• Introducing premium tiers or add-on features

• Implementation of usage-based pricing models

• Strategic product expansions and upgrades

• Value-based price increases aligned with customer success

While achieving negative net revenue churn might not be an immediate priority for early-stage startups focused on customer acquisition, it becomes increasingly important for sustainable growth and profitability as the company matures.

Hit the Gas and Scale

Every industry has its own reference values for unit economics, but in general, in the SaaS world, LTV is considered an excellent metric when it exceeds CAC by at least 3 times. Similarly, a period of 12 to 18 months is considered optimal for recovering CAC spending.

These values, along with gross margin, form the foundation for understanding whether the company is operating profitably and whether it's ready to invest money to establish itself as a scalable business.

If this latter scenario materializes, the critical mistake to avoid is continuing to be frugal. Such penny-pinching serves no purpose and prevents the company from making that coveted quantum leap. Investing in growth becomes the only path forward if you aim to occupy a dominant position within your target market.

This investment will trigger a cascade of mechanisms that will attract more and more people to the brand and, naturally, drive revenue growth.

True, a company might reach this stage with limited available funds and struggle to step on the accelerator. The good news is that having demonstrated how repeatable, scalable, and profitable its business is, investors will be much more inclined to offer financing and put the company in a position to scale effectively.

Consider these sobering statistics:

• Only 23% of cold emails are ever opened

• A mere 2% result in a meeting or call (RAIN Group study)

This digital deluge has created three significant challenges for B2B marketers:

1. Inbox Saturation: Decision-makers are bombarded with unsolicited messages daily, making it increasingly difficult to stand out.

2. Trust Deficit: Without prior context or established credibility, your message is likely to be perceived as spam.

3. Value Obscurity: Prospects struggle to quickly discern why they should engage with you amidst the noise.

In this challenging environment, how can B2B companies cut through the clutter and truly connect with their target audience? The answer lies in a powerful yet often underutilized tool: Thought Leadership.

In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin,

People do not buy goods and services;
they buy relations, stories, and magic.

Through thought leadership, you're not just selling – you're creating a narrative that prospects want to be part of; start weaving yours today!

The Transformative Power of Thought Leadership

Thought leadership isn't just another buzzword – it's a strategic approach that positions your brand as an authoritative voice in your industry. By consistently sharing valuable insights and innovative perspectives, you can transform your Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy from a series of cold calls into warm, welcomed engagements.

Here's how thought leadership acts as a force multiplier for your GTM efforts:

1. Builds Credibility Before the Pitch

   • Prospects become familiar with your expertise through your content

   • 64% of C-Suite executives believe thought leadership is more effective than traditional marketing in establishing trust (Edelman-LinkedIn study)

2. Creates Lasting Brand Recognition

   • Regular exposure to your insights keeps your brand top-of-mind

   • Brands with strong thought leadership are 58% more likely to be considered during the purchasing process (LinkedIn-Edelman)

3. Demonstrates Deep Industry Insight

   • Showcase your understanding of complex industry challenges

   • Position your brand as a forward-thinking visionary in your field

4. Nurtures Prospects Organically

   • Provide value first, before asking for anything in return

   • Thought leadership content generates 3x more engagement than promotional content (LinkedIn)

By leveraging thought leadership, you're not just selling a product or service – you're offering valuable insights that help your prospects navigate their challenges. This approach transforms your GTM strategy from interruption-based marketing to a welcome and sought-after resource.

In the following sections, we'll explore how to develop a robust thought leadership strategy, the various types of content you can create, and how to seamlessly integrate this approach into your existing GTM efforts. Get ready to elevate your B2B marketing from cold calls to warm welcomes.

Understanding B2B Thought Leadership

Thought leadership goes beyond simply having insightful ideas; it's about transforming these ideas into actionable strategies that yield tangible results for businesses. True thought leaders are characterized by:

1. Original Thinking: They challenge the status quo and ask "What if?" questions.

2. Clear Vision: They articulate a compelling vision for the future.

3. Courage to Be Controversial: They're not afraid to spark debates with forward-thinking ideas.

4. Passion and Articulation: They make compelling arguments while remaining open to counterarguments.

5. Listening and Learning: They value insights from both supporters and critics.

6. Commanding Attention: They excel at breaking down complex ideas for diverse audiences.

7. Economy of Words: They communicate succinctly and effectively.

8. Fostering a Follower Base: They cultivate a dedicated group of followers who can replicate and scale their ideas.

Comprehensive Typology of B2B SaaS Thought Leaders

In the B2B SaaS world, thought leaders can be categorized based on their approach, style, and impact rather than their specific area of expertise. Here's a comprehensive typology of thought leaders you might encounter in this space, complete with characteristics and real-world examples:

1. The Visionary These thought leaders are known for their big ideas and ability to predict future trends in the B2B SaaS industry. They often challenge conventional wisdom and inspire others to think differently.
   Characteristics: Forward-thinking, inspirational, often controversial
   Example: Marc Benioff (Salesforce) - Known for pioneering the "End of Software" concept and cloud-based CRM

2. The Data Scientist These leaders base their insights on hard data and analytics. They use metrics and statistics to back up their claims and often introduce new ways of measuring success in B2B SaaS.
   Characteristics: Analytical, evidence-based, methodical
   Example: DJ Patil (ex-LinkedIn, DataScience.com) - Coined the term "Data Scientist" and advocates for data-driven decision making in SaaS

3. The Storyteller These thought leaders excel at communicating complex B2B SaaS concepts through compelling narratives. They often use case studies and real-world examples to illustrate their points.
   Characteristics: Engaging, relatable, excellent communicators
   Example: Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot) - Known for his ability to communicate inbound marketing concepts through compelling narratives

4. The Practitioner These are hands-on leaders who have built successful B2B SaaS companies or products. They share practical, experience-based advice and are often seen as highly credible due to their track record.
   Characteristics: Practical, experienced, results-oriented
   Example: Jason Lemkin (SaaStr, ex-EchoSign) - Shares hands-on advice from his experience scaling SaaS companies

5. The Academic These thought leaders bring a more theoretical and research-based approach to B2B SaaS. They often collaborate with universities or conduct their own studies to advance knowledge in the field.
   Characteristics: Scholarly, research-focused, theoretical
   Example: Clayton Christensen (Harvard Business School) - While not strictly B2B SaaS, his theories on disruptive innovation have greatly influenced the industry

6. The Connector These individuals excel at bringing together ideas from different areas of B2B SaaS or even outside the industry. They're known for their ability to synthesize information and spot unique patterns.
   Characteristics: Interdisciplinary, innovative, broad-minded
   Example: Aaron Levie (Box) - Known for connecting ideas from consumer tech to enterprise software

7. The Contrarian These thought leaders are known for challenging the status quo in B2B SaaS. They often present alternative viewpoints and aren't afraid to disagree with popular opinion.
   Characteristics: Provocative, bold, independent thinkers
   Example: David Heinemeier Hansson (Basecamp) - Often challenges Silicon Valley norms and VC-backed growth models

8. The Educator These leaders focus on teaching and simplifying complex B2B SaaS concepts. They often create courses, write books, or host workshops to share their knowledge.
   Characteristics: Instructive, clear communicators, patient
   Example: Patrick McKenzie (Stripe) - Known for his detailed blog posts and Twitter threads explaining complex SaaS concepts

9. The Evangelist These thought leaders are passionate advocates for particular approaches or technologies within B2B SaaS. They're often associated with specific methodologies or platforms.
   Characteristics: Passionate, persuasive, loyal to their cause Example: Guy Kawasaki (ex-Apple, Canva) - While not exclusively B2B SaaS, his evangelism techniques are widely adopted in the industry

10. The Problem Solver These individuals are known for their ability to tackle complex challenges in the B2B SaaS space. They often share frameworks or methodologies for addressing common industry problems.
    Characteristics: Pragmatic, solution-oriented, analytical
    Example: Hiten Shah (FYI, Crazy Egg) - Known for his practical advice on solving common SaaS challenges

11. The Ethical Voice These thought leaders focus on ethical considerations in B2B SaaS, such as data privacy, AI ethics, or sustainable business practices. Characteristics: Principled, socially conscious, often challenging the industry Example: Cindy Cohn (Electronic Frontier Foundation) - While not strictly B2B SaaS, her work on digital rights impacts SaaS data policies

12. The Futurist Similar to The Visionary, but with a more specific focus on long-term technological trends and their impact on B2B SaaS.
    Characteristics: Imaginative, tech-savvy, long-term thinkers
    Example: Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) - While not exclusively B2B SaaS, his forward-thinking approach influences many SaaS leaders

Each of these types of thought leaders brings a unique perspective and approach to the B2B SaaS industry. The most influential thought leaders often embody characteristics from multiple categories, adapting their approach based on the needs of their audience and the topics they're addressing. Their insights and approaches continue to shape the direction of the industry and inspire new generations of SaaS entrepreneurs and leaders.

How to structure Your Thought Leadership Strategy

To maximize the impact of thought leadership on your cold outreach efforts, it's crucial to approach it strategically. Here's a framework to help you structure your thought leadership initiative:

1. Define Your Niche Identify your unique area of expertise within your industry. Focus on specific problems your target audience faces. For example, instead of general "cloud computing," specialize in "secure cloud solutions for healthcare providers." Develop detailed buyer personas for your ideal customer profile. Understand their pain points, goals, and preferred content formats. According to a Demand Gen Report, 48% of B2B decision-makers spend more time researching purchases than in previous years.

2. Establish Your Key Messages Develop 3-5 core themes that align with your expertise and audience needs. Ensure these messages differentiate you from competitors. Use the "So what?" test to ensure each message provides clear value to your audience.

   Develop Unique Perspectives, challenge conventional wisdom in your industry with data-backed insights. Offer fresh angles on common problems or emerging trends. Conduct original research or analyze existing data in novel ways. Create proprietary models, tools, or platforms that enhance your credibility. For example, McKinsey's contrarian view on "Why digital strategies fail" garnered significant attention by challenging popular beliefs. Use the "Red Thread Method" to find the unique idea that ties your expertise to your audience's needs.

3. Create a Content Ecosystem Develop a mix of content types: long-form articles, whitepapers, videos, podcasts, etc. Ensure each piece of content supports your key messages. Use the "pillar and cluster" model to create comprehensive coverage of your themes. Develop a Distribution Plan Identifying key channels where your audience consumes content. Tailor your content format and tone to each platform. Develop a content calendar to ensure regular publication. Maintain a consistent voice and quality across all content. Remember that thought leadership is a long-term strategy, not a one-time campaign

   Partner with industry influencers and complementary businesses. Participate in or host industry events and webinars. The goal is to expand your reach and reinforce your authority.

4. Measure and Iterate Set clear KPIs tied to your business objectives. Regularly analyze content performance and audience engagement. Use these insights to refine your strategy and content focus.

   Ensure your sales team understands and can leverage your thought leadership content. Create sales enablement materials based on your thought leadership. A best practice is to host regular meetings between marketing and sales to align on content usage in outreach.

5. Stay Ahead of Trends Invest in ongoing research and industry monitoring. Be prepared to pivot your strategy as industry needs evolve. According to an Edelman-LinkedIn study, 88% of decision-makers say thought leadership is effective in enhancing their perceptions of an organization.

   

Thought Leadership Content Types

To stand out in the crowded B2B space and enhance your cold outreach efforts, consider these targeted approaches:

1. Industry-Specific Trend Reports:

   • Develop comprehensive annual or quarterly reports on your industry's state and future.

   • Example: Salesforce's annual "State of Sales" report provides valuable insights for sales professionals.

2. Problem-Solving Webinars:

   • Host live webinars addressing specific challenges in your industry, showcasing your expertise.

   • Case Study: HubSpot's webinar series on inbound marketing strategies increased their qualified leads by 60%.

3. Personalized Video Insights:

   • Create short, customized video analyses for high-value prospects based on publicly available data about their company.

   • Success Story: Vidyard reported a 500% increase in response rates when their sales team used personalized video content.

4. Collaborative Whitepapers:

   • Partner with respected industry figures or complementary businesses to produce in-depth whitepapers.

5. Interactive Assessment Tools:

   • Develop online tools that help prospects evaluate their current situation related to your area of expertise.

   • Success Metric: Cybereason's "Breach Assessment Tool" generated 1000+ qualified leads in its first month.

Successful thought leadership examples

1. Basecamp - Thought Leadership in Project Management

I have Followed Jason Fried, the leader at Basecamp, since the beginning of his journey. His company, 37Signals, has a website that catalogs best practices for creating sustainable businesses and educates project teams and managers on the importance of streamlined organization. Through blogs, podcasts, and books like "Re Base” Basecamp has shaped thinking on how to manage projects more efficiently.

Their key practice is sharing project management experiences to streamline processes and reduce stress. This has resulted in building a strong community of users who embrace a simplified and productive approach.

2. Gong.io - Thought Leadership in Data-driven Sales

Gong.io, under the leadership of CEO Amit Bendov, excels in providing data-based insights for sales teams. Their thought leadership is built on reports and articles that demonstrate how to improve sales performance through conversational analysis.

Their best practice involves creating detailed reports that reveal best practices in sales. This has led to tremendous growth among sales teams, with Gong.io now considered a leader in sales software.

3. Superpath - Thought Leadership in Content Marketing

Founded by Jimmy Daly, Superpath is a community for content marketers providing educational resources. Their leadership is based on newsletters, courses, and discussion groups that help marketers grow in their careers.

Their key practice is building a learning platform that responds to the specific needs of marketing professionals. This has resulted in rapid community growth and the development of premium resources.

4. Calendly - Thought Leadership in Productivity

Calendly, founded by Tope Awotona, has established itself as a thought leader in time management, offering solutions for planning and personal productivity. Through blog posts and educational resources, they teach how to optimize time with automatic scheduling tools.

Their key practice is providing content that demonstrates how to eliminate inefficiencies in the scheduling process. This has led to widespread adoption by professionals seeking to simplify time management.

5. Close CRM - Thought Leadership in Sales Productivity

Close CRM, led by Steli Efti, has positioned itself as a thought leader in sales productivity and efficiency. Through their blog, podcast "The Startup Chat," and Steli's books, they educate sales teams on how to close deals more effectively.

Their best practice is providing actionable sales strategies and tips based on real-world experience. This has resulted in a loyal following among startups and SMBs looking to optimize their sales processes.

6. ColdIQ - Thought Leadership in Cold Outreach

ColdIQ, with Michel Lieben at the helm, has established itself as a thought leader in the cold outreach space. They focus on educating sales professionals about effective, ethical cold emailing and LinkedIn outreach strategies.

Their key practice is sharing data-backed insights on cold outreach best practices and personalization techniques. This has led to growing recognition in the sales community as experts in cold outreach optimization.

7. RB2B - Thought Leadership in B2B Marketing

RB2B, with Adam Robinson as a key figure, has positioned itself as a thought leader in B2B marketing strategy. They focus on providing insights into account-based marketing, demand generation, and marketing technology.

Their best practice involves sharing comprehensive case studies and data-driven marketing strategies tailored for B2B companies. This has resulted in a strong reputation among B2B marketers looking for innovative approaches.

8. Lemlist - Thought Leadership in Email Outreach Automation

Lemlist, co-founded by Guillaume Moubeche, has established itself as a thought leader in email outreach automation and personalization. Through their blog, YouTube channel, and Guillaume's personal brand, they educate marketers and salespeople on how to create more human and effective email campaigns.

Their key practice is demonstrating innovative ways to personalize and automate email outreach at scale. This has led to a devoted following among sales and marketing professionals seeking to improve their email performance.

9. Sangram Vajre - Thought Leadership in Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Sangram Vajre, co-founder of Terminus and previously with 6sense, has been a pivotal figure in popularizing Account-Based Marketing (ABM). He coined the term "ABM" and drove the "Flip My Funnel" movement, reshaping how B2B companies approach marketing and sales alignment.

His key practice is advocating for a targeted, account-focused approach to B2B marketing, challenging traditional lead-based models. This has resulted in widespread adoption of ABM strategies across the B2B landscape.

10. David Lewis - Thought Leadership in Demand Generation

David Lewis has positioned himself as a thought leader in Demand Generation, advocating for marketing to be viewed as a profit center rather than a cost center. Through his books and speaking engagements, he's shaped how companies approach revenue marketing.

His best practice involves providing frameworks and strategies for aligning marketing efforts directly with revenue generation. This has led to a shift in how businesses perceive and structure their marketing departments.

11. Rand Fishkin - Thought Leadership in SEO and Digital Marketing

Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz and later SparkToro, has established himself as a prominent thought leader in SEO and broader digital marketing strategies. Through his "Whiteboard Friday" videos, blog posts, and conferences, he's educated countless marketers on SEO best practices.

His best practice involves breaking down complex SEO concepts into accessible, actionable insights for marketers of all levels. This has resulted in a large, engaged following in the digital marketing community.

12. Scott Brinker - Thought Leadership in Marketing Technology (MarTech)

Scott Brinker, widely known as the "Chief MarTech" officer, has established himself as a preeminent thought leader in the marketing technology space. As the editor of chiefmartec.com and now VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, Brinker has been instrumental in shaping how marketers understand and navigate the complex world of marketing technology.

His key practice is creating and annually updating the Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic, a comprehensive visual representation of the MarTech industry. Brinker's thought leadership extends through his analytical ChiefMartec blog, where he provides pragmatic advice and cuts through industry hype. He excels at breaking down complex technological trends into digestible insights, often sharing deep-dives and expert interviews.

The result of Brinker's thought leadership has been far-reaching, influencing how companies approach their marketing technology stacks and helping countless marketers navigate the increasingly complex MarTech landscape.

The Future of B2B Engagement

In an era where trust is the new currency, thought leadership is no longer optional – it's critical for successful B2B marketing strategies. By investing in high-quality thought leadership content, you're not just improving cold outreach; you're building a foundation for long-term business relationships. As you embark on this journey, remember that the goal isn't just to be heard but to be sought out; when cold outreach becomes a warm welcome, you'll know your thought leadership strategy is working.

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Starting from the 1980s, Norwegian salmon production began to grow exponentially, to the point where supply far exceeded demand.

Compared to a company, the Norwegian state found itself with an appreciated product that it was producing in quantities greater than those required and consequently couldn't sell all of it.

So what to do? New customers are needed, the sales target needs to be expanded. And here comes the stroke of genius. The Norwegians look at each other and say: let's create new demand where nothing exists today, let's sell more salmon to the Japanese who will then use it to make sushi.

It all seems crazy, but in 1986 the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries inaugurated the "Japan Project," soon convincing a Japanese frozen food company to buy 5,000 tons of raw salmon to be used exclusively for sushi.

Although today it's perfectly normal to associate salmon with sushi, before then it wasn't so, and in Japan, sushi wasn't prepared with this type of fish. It was the beginning of a new era: from the 2 tons of salmon exported from Norway to Japan in 1980, it rose to 28,000 tons in 1995.

What is an ideal customer profile

The incredible story of Norwegian salmon, the result of ingenuity, diplomacy, marketing, and storytelling, is the starting point to begin talking to you about the Ideal Customer Profile, also known as ICP.

Borrowing the words of Stijn Hendrikse and Mike Northfield from the book T2D3: How some software startups scale, where many fail:

"An ICP (Marketing) is an outline of your ideal customer: the ones you want more of. The ones who buy from you consistently and tell others about their experiences. The customers that do not churn. The customers that had a real pain problem and clearly embraced your value proposition. The customers that had the shortest sales cycles and lowest sales friction."

In far fewer words, ICP Sales and ICP Marketing define a hypothetical company or organization that represents the perfect customer for the product or service being sold.

The Norway example is obviously outside traditional schemes, but it gives a good idea of how the search for an ICP is something very versatile and dynamic. In their case, the Scandinavian country already had a highly appreciated product, a well-known product, well-positioned in the food market and in the minds of consumers. The Ideal Customer Profile was therefore clear and solid (the various companies to which to sell salmon), but it was no longer enough, the context had changed and the ICP also required renewal. Hence the study of new useful market segments and the definition of a new target audience.

The new ICP of the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries not only identified a huge number of new ideal customers, creating from scratch a need that until recently did not exist, but gave birth to a true lovemark: sushi prepared with salmon.

How to identify your Ideal Customer Profile ICP

Even if the Norwegian state is not exactly a company, its behavior demonstrates all the power and effectiveness of an ICP conceived correctly. The goal is very simple: sell your products and do it to the right customers.

The ICP is therefore among the main elements that drive a company's growth, as well as its sales and marketing strategies. But where do you start to create one? What are the components to analyze, the right questions to ask, and the various requirements to meet?

I will continue by examining all these points to give you the opportunity to have a well-traced perimeter where you can best orient yourself in defining an Ideal Customer Profile. There are 5 phases to elaborate:

1. Research and understanding of the market in which you operate

2. Segmentation

3. Definition of the ICP and buyer personas

4. Testing and refinement

5. Implementation of the ICP in the GTM strategy and continuous monitoring

First phase: research and understanding of the market in which you operate

The first phase in defining an ICP is research and understanding of the market in which a company operates. This is articulated in 3 steps:

Market analysis

The company must understand where it is, what its playing field is, and what characteristics will then be crucial for selling its products or services.

To do this, you need to study the main industry trends, focus on the most profitable segments in terms of demand, and shed light on the factors that influence market dynamics: logistics, regulatory context, level of competition, and entry barriers.

Competitor analysis

Who are the competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What is their positioning and how do they differentiate their products on the market? What are their pricing strategies and what are the empty spaces to fill?

By analyzing the competition, every company should be able to answer all these questions, obtaining useful information to identify those distinctive elements to bring out during the go-to-market.

Pain points and needs

What kind of needs do customers have when looking for a product or service present in a certain market? What problems are they trying to solve?

To answer these questions, a large amount of information needs to be collected. The collection methods can be different: qualitative and quantitative surveys, focus groups to deepen the challenges, needs, and preferences that emerged in the surveys, analysis of customer feedback, their reviews, and comments left on social media to identify areas for improvement.

Second phase: segmentation

All the information collected in phase 1 should be used to arrive at the most promising market segments, where to concentrate efforts.

Segmenting in this case means dividing the reference market into smaller categories, defined based on common characteristics. In this way, it will be possible to focus on those groups of prospects that would obtain more advantages using a particular product or service.

Even if it may initially seem counterintuitive (why not aim directly at everyone!?), the smaller the reference market, the faster prospects will be reached and the higher the conversion rates will be. There's always time to expand and broaden your sales pool.

The criteria for segmenting a given market can be different:

• Demographics (age, gender, income level, education, occupation)

• Geographic (location, region, city, specific neighborhoods)

• Psychographic (lifestyles, interests, values, attitudes, and personality traits)

• Behavioral (purchasing habits, brand interactions, product use, loyalty)

The next step is to evaluate the potential of each segment in relation to the product/service sold. To do this, you need to know:

• How attractive a segment is, based on growth potential, accessibility, size, and fruitfulness.

• How much the needs and expectations contained in each segment correspond to the offer of products or services sold.

• How much competition is present in individual segments.

• How much the company is able to serve and preside over each segment, deriving maximum profit from it.

The last step is to prioritize the various segments based on the collected data, in order to aim at those that align most with the company's objectives and capabilities. In other words, you need to make a ranking: what is the top 5 of the segments you have identified? are they really all useful to your business? will they help you equally to achieve positive results?

Third phase: definition of the ICP and buyer personas

After identifying and prioritizing the most promising market segments for your business, an ideal profile, a target reference, must be connected to each segment.

To do this, a series of information is needed that will later be used by sales and marketing teams to work on customer engagement and understand how much the acquired customers are actually in line with the criteria established by the ICP. The main elements are:

• Company size: total number of employees, number of employees per single department, annual revenue (LinkedIn is a great starting point to start this type of research, alternatively I recommend PhantomBuster).

• Industry type: in what market do the companies that fall within the ICP operate? Are they fintech? Do they belong to the pharma sector? Do they make software?

• Company age: it's very important to know how many years a potential client company has existed, more mature companies are for example much less prone than startups to take risks.

• Demographic information: average age of employees, gender, income level, education, and professional qualification.

• Geographic information: location of the company headquarters, the geographical area in which the potential customer operates, climatic factors that could affect logistics.

• Technographics: what are the technological solutions and tools used by the company to manage work flows in the various departments? (HubSpot, SAP, Oracle, Trello, Slack, Microsoft Azure, Marketo, Power BI, Visual StudioCode)

• Psychographic data: interests, hobbies, and values of the customer that could influence the perception of the product for sale.

• Behavioral data: purchasing habits, usage patterns of the product for sale, and interactions with the brand.

• Needs and pain: specific challenges or problems that a product or service can solve for the customer.

• Decision triggers: events or circumstances that push the customer to look for the proposed solutions.

The more details that emerge from this analysis, the more detailed the target will be, the more it will be possible to understand the characteristics, needs, and behaviors of the ideal customer.

The figures involved in the decision-making process

Once the ideal target has been identified, it's time to discover who will be the ideal profiles of the people who are responsible for purchasing within a company, the so-called buyer personas. But first, a premise on the sales process between companies (B2B) is necessary.

Unlike B2C sales, companies are not comparable to a human being, it's not the company that decides to buy a product or service, but the people who work within it. And these people may have conflicting interests and perspectives regarding the same product.

Within each company, there will therefore be several figures who play a key role in the decision-making process. The goal is to understand who these people are and how to engage them.

The key figures that drive the decision-making process on the purchase of a new product or service are three:

1. The end users - All those people who will directly use a product or service in their daily work.

2. The champion - The figure who actively promotes the purchase of the product or service by the company.

3. The economic buyer - The person responsible for the budget necessary to purchase the product or service.

These three roles are present in all companies, in smaller ones the figures might overlap, but basically it's always necessary to investigate starting from these figures.

But where to start the search? There is no written manual, but the tools available today are undoubtedly many more than in the past. Platforms like LinkedIn or similar allow you to obtain information about a company's employees more easily, some companies even provide contacts for the main executive figures on their website pages. There are also several lead generation platforms (Apollo, Lusha) that provide hundreds and hundreds of data to support sales.

The champion is ideally the figure from which to start the search, being the person who will then have to promote the purchase of a product among the company's departments. But things are not always that easy, sometimes it's not simple to find and contact the champion.

In these cases, the only thing to do is to find at least one internal contact in the company, a phone number, an email, a social profile, any means that allows you to get in touch with the potential customer.

Once the contact is obtained, the goal is to extract precious information that leads to the champion or at least to the end user of that company. Usually in these cases, we proceed with the so-called discovery questions, those questions that allow you to verify if the intercepted prospect and its attributes are actually in line with the ICP.

To make the most of the time of the first contact, it's important to set up questions that aim to establish the problems of potential buyers, the impact these problems have on their working life, and the critical events that are causing the problem. Without this information, it will be very difficult to get to the heart of the sale.

Other important figures

Alongside the figures just seen, there are other roles that can influence the sales process.

• Influencers: these are people who manage to influence the decisions of the main decision-makers thanks to their experience or their company position. These figures can also be external, such as newspapers, industrial groups, or consulting companies.

• Stakeholders with veto power: in many companies, there are figures who, based on hierarchies or the functions they perform, may have the power to block a certain purchase. For example, the IT department could veto the purchase of software.

• Purchasing department: those who work in the purchasing department deal with the management of the entire purchasing process and, as often happens, aim to reduce costs, of any nature. It's not a team present in all companies, it depends on the size, but it could slow down the sale or in any case orient the choice towards less expensive competitors (it's not uncommon for a purchasing department to ask for more quotes to compare on the same product/service).

Attributes of buyer personas

Returning to buyer personas and taking into account the main company figures involved in the decision-making process, the key aspects to investigate to define the ideal profile of a buyer persona are:

• Role: what role does the buyer persona profile have in the sale? Is it an end user? Is it the economic buyer? Is it the champion?

• Job titles: the possible job titles of stakeholders in their respective roles.

• Pain points: the common challenges that each role has in solving a particular problem with the solutions at their disposal (if present). Keep in mind that in this case the challenges could vary depending on the role: for a UI designer, a tool like Adobe Sensei could simplify and speed up the less creative tasks of their work, while for the Design manager it would mean having more time to plan future strategies with his team to improve the product/service sold. Similarly, not always are buyer personas looking to solve their pain points: there will be those who are actively looking to solve certain problems, those who don't recognize the problem as a problem, those who try to solve it with DIY methods, and those who are aware of the problem but are not motivated or interested in solving it.

• Desired impact: the results that each role expects using the product or service to be purchased. Also in this case there are differences between the various roles: usually the end user wants to obtain an improvement in their working life (reduce repetitive work, save time, reduce stress), the economic buyer will instead be interested in the impact that new solutions will have on company objectives (reduce costs, increase sales).

• Critical events: imminent projects or activities within the company that make a change urgent and that could consequently influence the final choice of the buyer.

Use of Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD)

The Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework can be particularly useful in tracing pain points and desired impacts related to buyer personas. Here's how JTBD can enhance our understanding:

1. Identifying underlying needs: JTBD helps uncover the fundamental "job" a persona is trying to accomplish, which can reveal pain points that may not be immediately obvious when focusing solely on product features or roles.

2. Contextualizing activities: By understanding the "job" a persona is trying to get done, we can better contextualize their activities and understand why certain tasks are important to them.

3. Uncovering emotional aspects: JTBD considers both functional and emotional aspects of a job, helping to identify pain points related to frustration, stress, or other emotional factors that might not be captured in a traditional persona description.

4. Mapping the customer journey: JTBD can help map out the entire process a persona goes through to complete a job, highlighting pain points and activities at each stage.

5. Prioritizing pain points: By understanding which "jobs" are most critical to a persona, we can better prioritize which pain points to address first in product development or marketing strategies.

Integrating JTBD with buyer personas provides a more comprehensive view of customer needs and behaviors, allowing for more effective targeting of pain points and optimization of key activities in the customer journey.

If you're working on your ICP and need help synthesizing all these attributes, you can download my ideal customer profile worksheet. It will help you group the various information collected.

Ideal Customer Profile Template Download

Fourth phase: testing and refinement

The fourth phase potentially knows no end. Once the ICP and its buyer personas have been defined, the time for tests, the validation phase, and any refinements arrives. But this flow is not limited to the first developments or the subsequent implementation of the ICP in the GTM strategy.

The process is a continuous process, a loop of feedback and adjustments that allows companies to always work in perfect sync with what are the changes in the market and their ideal customers.

In this phase, there are several activities that can be undertaken: testing the various sales messages and the channels from which they are conveyed, collecting customer feedback (surveys, interviews), collecting quantitative data following marketing activities (conversion rate, engagement rate), updating the ICP and buyer personas based on the new information collected (refining demographic, psychographic data, pain and needs, etc.), readapting marketing strategies and the choice of channels used to reach customers.

Only in this way will it be possible to ensure that the ICP always remains pertinent and relevant to business purposes, ensuring high sales results and performance, optimizing resources, and concentrating efforts only on segments with the most promising customers. The watchword in this case is "sustainable business": a good ICP = less wasted time, less marketing expenses.

Fifth phase: implementation in the GTM strategy and continuous monitoring

Once the ICP has been identified, validated, and refined, it's essential to implement it in the go-to-market strategy so that all the company's activities aim at the same objectives.

The ways in which a company chooses to reach the buyer personas of its ICP will guide the entire GTM strategy. The messages, marketing campaigns, and channels used to reach customers must take into account the preferences and behaviors expressed in the ICP. Sales approaches and engagement methods must be conceived based on the ICP's buyer personas.

Similarly, product development and evolution must always take into account the needs and problems that the ICP is trying to solve (thanks to the ICP, the company can decide which new features to integrate into the product and which not). The same thing must be done by the entire customer service department which, based on the expectations of the ICP, must guarantee high rates of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Also in this case, for the work to be alive, dynamic, in line with market changes and customer needs, it must be continuously tested and refined. Only in this way will the ICP be able to guide the company towards achieving effective marketing and sales strategies.

The role of early adopters

In 1962, sociologist Everett M. Rogers published the book "Diffusion of Innovations" introducing the concept of early adopter. In his essay, Rogers describes how innovations are employed in a society, identifying five categories of people based on the speed with which they adopt new ideas or technologies: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

According to this model, early adopters are the group of people who adopt an innovation shortly after the innovators, playing a crucial role in the diffusion of new ideas thanks to their influence and the respect they enjoy in their communities.

In the startup world, the concept of early adopter was popularized by Geoffrey Moore, particularly through his book Crossing the Chasm. Moore adapted and expanded Everett Rogers' theory, applying it specifically to the context of technology startups and high-tech markets.

In Crossing the Chasm, Moore explains how the crucial challenge for new companies is precisely to face the transition from early adopters (the first enthusiastic users willing to risk with new technologies) to the early majority, a wider and more conservative audience. This transition, according to Moore, is the critical point for many startups, and is often where their success or failure is decided.

ECP vs ICP

On the road leading to the ICP, early adopters play a fundamental role. The ICP is not the result of a photograph that immortalizes a single moment. As the case of Norwegian salmon demonstrates, reference targets can vary over time due to unplanned necessities, but the same applies to all those phases that precede the characterization of the ICP.

Before conquering the ICP, you need to make your way in the market to reach it, and this means finding important evidence that can demonstrate how a product/service really works: case studies, testimonials, use cases, working prototypes, etc.

The only path to follow to obtain this evidence is to analyze the behavior of Early Customer Profiles (ECP), that is, the early adopters.

Potentially every ECP could use the product for sale in different ways and for different purposes, it will be the use cases that will have the most success in leading towards the ideal customer. It is therefore crucial to focus on the best ECPs, those that come closest to the future ICP.

Archetypes of early adopters

Author and GTM strategist , thanks to her field experience, has identified 5 different archetypes of early adopters over the years.

1. Tech enthusiast: technology enthusiasts, those always ready to try new tools and new services providing feedback and testimonials. If the novelty meets their expectations, they will be the first to promote it in various communities, but they get bored quickly if they are not frequently stimulated.

2. Underdog supporter: early adopters with good intentions, those who always support innovation, especially if sustainable. However, they have a limited budget that is often not sufficient to trigger real change.

3. Game changer: they are the "rebels of the company", the most creative leaders, those who seek in any way to bring positive changes and optimize a company's processes. They are perfect for obtaining valuable suggestions in favor of the ICP.

4. Digital transformer: they are often external consultants who are called in at crucial moments for companies that are in a transition phase. Their purpose is to concretely implement the necessary changes for the company to take off, but they can encounter many resistances within the organization. If helped in their mission, they are ready to reciprocate.

5. Visionary founder: the most charismatic and influential leaders, capable of seeing before everyone else the potential of new products or services. Collaborating with them can open many doors and offer an important testimony, but be careful, because their charisma could distract from the main objective.

The search for and choice of ECPs involves a series of differences compared to the ICP. Customers who can make decisions quickly, with urgent problems to solve and willing to use a product/service that is not entirely perfect are preferred. For this reason, companies are often willing to compromise, offering initial discounts on the sale price. After all, the goal is simple: to obtain as many use cases as possible, therefore many reviews, many feedback, and many testimonials.

Conclusions

As emerged in the episode on Minimum Viable Brand, it is fundamental that the ICP is also clear at all company levels. Not being aligned means aiming at different objectives and therefore slowing down the company's growth itself.

Equally to B2C sales, even in sales between companies, buyer personas find themselves living in increasingly fast contexts full of inputs. For this reason, it becomes fundamental to tighten the target audience as much as possible, at least initially: going for a sure shot is impossible, but the narrower the target, the easier it will be to identify truly interested prospects.

This means having to work very well and with a lot of patience on the research and information gathering part. The refinement phases will be simpler if the work done at the beginning was done well, vice versa there is a risk of spending money and time on wrong targets.

References

Stijn Hendrikse and Mike Northfield, T2D3: How some software startups scale, where many fail (2021, Independently published)

Before there is Ideal, there is Early (Customer Profile),

A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), Arpit Mishra

How to build the ideal customer profile for your business,

The Decision-Making Unit: The Who-is-Who of Your B2B Sales Process, Disciplined Entrepreneurship

ICP Template, Bemind

Over the past few years, I've immersed myself in countless articles about Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP), Beachhead strategies, and Go-to-Market (GTM) methodologies. While each concept is valuable, I've always felt something was missing - a clear picture of how they all fit together.

This article is the result of my quest to connect these dots. I've experimented, talked to founders, and applied these concepts in my ventures. What I've discovered is that the magic lies not in these elements individually, but in how they interact and support each other throughout a startup's growth journey.

In this guide, I'll demonstrate how defining your ICP shapes your Beachhead strategy by identifying your initial target market. Then, I'll show how this focused strategy determines which GTM methodologies will be most effective for reaching and converting your ideal customers. We'll explore over 40 GTM tactics, illustrating how to select and apply them based on your ICP, Beachhead market, and current growth stage.

Whether you're just starting out or ready for expansion, this guide aims to provide a comprehensive, practical roadmap for B2B SaaS success. Let's dive in and see how these pieces fit together to drive your startup's growth.

Understanding the Beachhead Strategy

This strategy takes its name from the military term "beachhead," which refers to the first secure area that invasion forces establish on an enemy beach during an amphibious assault.

The "beachhead strategy" in the context of marketing and business was formalized and popularized mainly by Geoffrey Moore in his book "Crossing the Chasm" published in 1991. In his book, Moore applied the military concept of "beachhead" to marketing strategies for technology companies, mainly to help them cross the "chasm" between early adopters and the majority of the market.

In the business-to-business (B2B) context, the beachhead strategy involves:

1. Initially focusing on a very specific and limited market segment.

2. Establishing a strong presence in this narrow segment.

3. Using this initial success as a basis for expanding into broader or related market segments.

The advantages of this strategy include:

• Allowing the company to concentrate limited resources on a specific objective.

• Facilitating learning and adaptation of the product/service to customer needs.

• Building a reputation and references in a specific sector.

• Creating a foothold from which to expand into broader markets.

This strategy is particularly useful for startups or companies entering new markets, as it allows them to establish a strong presence in a specific area before confronting larger competitors in broader markets.

How to identify an Ideal Beachhead Segment

To select an ideal beachhead segment, consider the following criteria:

1. Burning Pain Point: The target segment should have a pressing need that your product can address, motivating them to seek a solution.

2. High Willingness to Pay: The segment should be able and willing to pay a price that is profitable for your business, perceiving your solution as valuable.

3. Healthy Growth Potential: The beachhead segment should be large enough to sustain your business in the short term and have the potential for future growth.

4. Easy Access: The segment should be easily reachable through your sales and marketing efforts, ensuring effective engagement.

5. Subset of a Larger Market: The beachhead segment should be a well-defined sub-set of a larger addressable market, allowing for future expansion once traction is gained.

With your ideal beachhead segment identified, it's time to implement targeted Go-to-Market (GTM) methodologies. The following 40+ strategies are designed to be tailored to your specific beachhead, ensuring each tactic resonates with your ideal customers' unique needs. By aligning these methodologies with your beachhead strategy, you'll maximize the impact of your marketing and sales efforts on your most promising potential customers.

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The 60+ GTM Methodologies

Market Intelligence & Positioning

1. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Identification Create a detailed profile of your ideal customer based on demographic, behavioral, and psychographic data. This ICP will be the compass guiding all your GTM strategies. Tools: Clay, Apollo

2. Value Proposition Design Develop an irresistible value proposition that speaks directly to the challenges and aspirations of your ICP.

3. Value-Based Pricing Strategy Implement a pricing model that reflects the perceived value for your ICP, maximizing revenue potential.

4. Trend Analysis Identify emerging use cases and market trends relevant to your ICP, informing product development and marketing strategies. (Exploding Topics, Gummy Search, Glimpse)

1. Awareness

5. Targeted Content Marketing [GATED] Create whitepapers, eBooks, and research reports that address the specific challenges of your ICP, using them as lead magnets. With the help of Claude or Perplexity

6. Vertical SEO Optimize content for niche keywords that your ICP is searching for, positioning yourself as an industry resource. You can use tools like Surfer, Frase.io, RankIQ, or newborn Tely.ai

7. Channel-Specific Thought Leadership Position your brand as a thought leader on channels frequented by your ICP, such as LinkedIn for B2B decision-makers or GitHub for developers. Taplio or Scripe

8. B2B Influencer Marketing Programs Collaborate with industry influencers respected by your ICP to amplify your message and build credibility. Passiofroot, Ivee

9. Industry-Specific Podcasts Launch a podcast addressing topics relevant to your ICP, inviting industry experts and satisfied customers.

10. Targeted PR and Media Relations Develop relationships with journalists and publications specific to your ICP's industry to gain targeted media coverage. Prowly

11. Strategic Event Sponsorships Sponsor niche events attended by your ICP, maximizing visibility among the right audience.

12. Account-Based Advertising Use B2B advertising platforms (Linkedin, Meta) to specifically target companies matching your ICP with personalized messages.

13. Free Tool Creation [GATED/UNGATED] Develop micro-SaaS tools that solve specific problems for your ICP. These free tools demonstrate expertise, provide immediate value, and generate leads. v0, Claude, Vercel

14. Product Hunt Listings Create strategic product launches on Product Hunt to reach early adopters and tech enthusiasts. Plan launches with strategic ambassadors and upvoters to maximize visibility and engagement.

15. Compare Pages Develop detailed comparison pages highlighting your product's competitive advantages, optimized for comparison keywords and decision-making stages.

16. FB Groups Create and manage themed Facebook groups to build vertical communities around your ICP's interests and challenges. Focus on value-driven discussions and thought leadership.

17. App Exchanges List your product on relevant app marketplaces and exchanges to increase visibility among your ICP's preferred platforms.

18. Review Sites Presence Establish and maintain strong profiles on industry-specific review platforms to build social proof and credibility. G2, Capterra

19. Magazine Publication Create an industry-focused digital magazine that positions your brand as a thought leader while providing valuable insights to your ICP.

20. Social Ads Strategy Develop a comprehensive paid social media strategy across multiple platforms to reach and engage your ICP through sophisticated targeting and content delivery.

2. Engagement

21. Personalized Webinars and Virtual Events [GATED] Organize webinars and virtual events that address the specific challenges of your ICP, offering concrete, applicable solutions. Tools: Sequel, Livestorm

22. Tailored Interactive Content [GATED] Develop assessments, ROI calculators, and interactive quizzes that help your ICP quantify their problems and visualize solutions.

23. Personalized Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Implement highly personalized ABM campaigns for target companies that perfectly match your ICP.

24. Contextual Retargeting Use retargeting to show highly relevant content and offers based on your ICP's previous interactions with your brand.

25. Outbound Sales Implement proactive outreach strategies like cold calling, emailing, and social selling to engage ICP prospects directly. Email & LinkedIn automation (La Growth Machine, Apollo)

26. Personalized Email Nurturing [GATED] Create email nurturing sequences that provide progressively deeper content and insights, aligned with your ICP's specific needs.

27. Behavioral Lead Scoring Implement a scoring system based on key engagement signals, including visits to high-intent website pages, to qualify and prioritize leads. (RB2B, Koala, Albacross)

28. Vertical Community Building Create or actively participate in online communities specific to your ICP's industry, positioning yourself as a valuable resource. Circle

29. Developer Relations Programs For technical products, develop specific programs to engage developers within ICP organizations, providing resources, hackathons, and technical support. You can create a Slack or Discord channel.

30. IRL (In-Real-Life) Events Organize and participate in physical events that bring together your ICP for networking, learning, and product exploration.

31. Lookalike Ads Campaigns Leverage existing customer data to create targeted advertising campaigns reaching similar audiences across multiple platforms.

3. Evaluation

32. Personalized Free Trials [GATED] Offer free trial periods with features and use cases customized based on your ICP's specific needs.

33. Vertical Case Studies [GATED] Develop detailed case studies showing how companies similar to your ICP have solved specific problems using your solution.

34. Interactive Product Demos [GATED] Create interactive product demos that allow your ICP to experience the value of your solution in realistic scenarios.

35. Guided Feature Comparisons [GATED] Provide feature comparison guides that highlight how your solution stands out from the competition specifically for your ICP's needs.

36. Customized ROI Calculators [GATED] Develop ROI calculators that allow your ICP to quantify the potential value of your solution in their specific context.

37. Targeted Technical Documentation and API Resources [GATED] For technical products, provide detailed documentation and API resources demonstrating ease of integration and customization for your ICP. Mintlify

38. Structured Proof of Concept (PoC) [GATED] Offer structured PoCs that allow your ICP to test your solution in a controlled environment with clearly defined objectives and metrics.

39. Pre-Sales Strategic Consultations Offer free consultation sessions to help your ICP map their specific challenges to your solution's capabilities.

4. Purchase

40. Personalized Onboarding [GATED] Develop tailored onboarding plans that ensure rapid adoption and accelerated time-to-value for your ICP.

41. Flexible Contract Models Offer flexible contract options that adapt to your ICP's specific needs and budget cycles.

42. Solution-Oriented Packages Create product and service bundles specifically designed to solve your ICP's unique challenges.

43. KPI-Based Success Guarantees Offer success guarantees tied to specific KPIs that are most important to your ICP, demonstrating confidence in your solution's value.

5. Adoption

44. Vertical Customer Success Programs Implement industry-specialized customer success programs, ensuring your ICP achieves their specific goals.

45. Customized Training [GATED] Offer tailored training paths that align with your ICP's specific processes and objectives.

46. Key Integrations [GATED] Develop and support integrations with the tools and platforms most used by your ICP to maximize value and adoption.

47. Personalized Success Metrics Define and track customized success metrics that reflect your ICP's specific goals, tangibly demonstrating ROI.

6. Retention

48. Proactive Customer Support Provide proactive support tailored to your ICP’s needs, preventing churn in your Beachhead Market.

49. Ongoing Success Programs Implement industry-specific success programs to ensure continuous value for your ICP.

50. Feedback Loops Gather and act on feedback from your ICP to refine your product and GTM strategies.

51. Health Scoring Use ICP-specific health scores to monitor usage and prevent churn in your Beachhead Market.

52. Business Reviews Hold regular reviews with key ICP customers to align their success metrics with your solution.

53. Loyalty Programs Create loyalty incentives that resonate with your ICP and drive renewals.

54. NPS Strategies Use NPS data to re-engage at-risk ICP customers with tailored retention efforts.

7. Expansion

55. Usage-Based Upsells Implement upsell triggers based on your ICP's specific usage patterns, offering advanced features at the right moment.

56. Exclusive Beta Programs [GATED] Invite ICP customers to participate in exclusive beta programs for new features, involving them in the product development process.

57. Sectoral Customer Advisory Board Create a customer advisory board composed of key ICP customers to guide product roadmap and strengthen relationships.

58. Use Case-Based Cross-Selling Develop targeted cross-sell strategies that align with your ICP's most common use cases, expanding the value provided.

59. Strategic Alliances Form partnerships with complementary companies for joint product development and go-to-market strategies.

60. Channel Partner Programs Build a network of resellers, consultants and system integrators to extend market reach and sales capabilities. Offer certification programs and co-marketing opportunities. Tools: PartnerStack, CrossBeam

61. Technology Ecosystem Develop an app marketplace and API partner program to increase product value through integrations. Paragon, Merge, APIDeck

62. Tool Integrations Build integrations with popular tools used by your ICP to enhance product value, improve user experience, and facilitate adoption. Paragon, Merge, APIDeck

63. Affiliation Program Create an affiliate network to incentivize partners, influencers, and customers to promote your product. Tools: Impact.com, Everflow

8. Advocacy

64. Incentivized Referral Program Implement a referral program with incentives that resonate with your ICP, encouraging organic spread within the target industry. ReferralCandy, Viral Loops, Tapfiliate

65. Strategic Co-Marketing Collaborate with your most satisfied ICP customers to create joint thought leadership content, amplifying visibility in specific sectors.

66. Brand Ambassador Program Develop a brand ambassador program that transforms your most enthusiastic ICP customers into active promoters of your brand in their industry.

From 'Spray-and-Pray' to a Unified, Account-Based Approach

This article has outlined 42 GTM methodologies designed to radically transform your approach to B2B SaaS marketing and sales. By shifting from a "spray-and-pray" strategy to a unified, account-based model, these methodologies allow you to:

1. Focus Resources: Concentrate your efforts and resources on companies most likely to become long-term successful customers.

2. Personalize the Experience: Create a highly personalized experience at every stage of the customer journey, significantly increasing conversion and retention rates.

3. Align Teams: Unify marketing, sales, and customer success around a common vision of the ICP, improving efficiency and effectiveness across all touchpoints.

4. Maximize ROI: Optimize budget allocation by focusing on activities and channels that resonate most with your ICP.

5. Accelerate the Sales Cycle: Reduce time-to-close by providing highly relevant content and experiences that directly address your ICP's needs.

6. Improve Customer Retention: Create deeper, more lasting relationships with customers by understanding and anticipating their specific needs.

7. Drive Expansion: Facilitate revenue growth per customer through targeted and timely upsell and cross-sell strategies.

By implementing these methodologies, you will not only reach your ICP with greater precision but create a sustainable growth ecosystem that fuels the mutual success of your company and your customers.

The key to success in modern B2B SaaS lies not in reaching the largest number of potential customers, but in deeply connecting with the right ones. This unified, account-based approach allows you to do exactly that, transforming your GTM into a powerful engine for targeted and sustainable growth.

In "Grammatica della fantasia," writer Gianni Rodari develops the concept of the "fantastic binomial." The idea is to create stories by juxtaposing two randomly chosen words.

The more distant and unrelated the words are, the better the binomial will work, leading to improbable associations and unleashing creativity.

To introduce this new episode of Business Revealed, I was inspired by Rodari’s fantastic binomial. In this case, the two polar opposite words became two products: a pack of dog food and a super glue stick.

The perception of these objects will obviously differ based on where they are found. Dog food will be seen as essential in a pet shop, while glue will be seen as essential in a hardware store or a stationery shop.

But what happens if we switch the scenarios? It’s unlikely someone would need dog food in a hardware store, and no one would think to ask for glue in a pet shop. The customers might even be the same, but their priorities guide their purchase: it’s the context that counts.

For this reason, when talking about positioning, every company should first and foremost be concerned with the priorities of individual customers, whether it’s DIY equipment or dog food. If the products sold do not meet consumers’ priorities, they will simply be ignored.

Positioning Strategies

How can you differentiate your product in the market? How do you work on the perception that a hypothetical customer will have of a brand and its products? And how do you make these products seem more important than others? The answer is simple: develop an effective brand positioning strategy.

In the episode "It’s All about Positining” I explained how to reach an initial positioning hypothesis through my Positioning Framework for B2B SAAS Companies. Starting from scratch is certainly the best way to achieve a tailored result; however, some strategic models have been more successful than others over the years and can be a great starting point for any startup.

The key is always to dig as deep as possible to define the target audience (ICP Ideal Customer Profile/Buyer Personas) and meticulously study their behavior. If the brand is positioned correctly, customers themselves will be attracted to the offer.

Positioning Examples

Customer Service Positioning Strategy

Differentiating your business through customer service is one of the most common positioning strategies. The strongest advantage is being able to justify a high market price, provided, of course, that the promoted service is genuinely as advertised. Failing to deliver on promises in this case would trigger a true boomerang effect with negative reviews, undesirable calls and emails, and not-so-nice comments on social media.

The mistake many brands make is setting expectations too high, promising a service they cannot deliver. This negatively impacts Customer Delight and compromises the entire positioning.

A great example of a company that has made customer service the core of its positioning is Octopus Energy. The British company has fully internalized customer service by creating a team of professionals and experts from the energy sector, capable of offering high-quality service throughout the sales funnel, starting from acquisition.

Convenience-Based Positioning Strategy

In this case, the brand’s positioning leverages the convenience and ease of use of a product or service (ease of use, high availability, assistance available through multiple channels). Choosing this type of positioning attracts customers who are willing to spend more money for greater convenience.

Again, it’s crucial to only make promises you can keep. Particularly, a company choosing this type of positioning must ensure it can meet a high demand for its product/service, both in terms of costs and productivity.

Dollar Shave Club is an excellent example of a company that chose to develop its positioning strategy around convenience. The razor brand allows customers to purchase high-quality products and receive them conveniently at home through a subscription service.

Price-Based Positioning Strategy

Another very common strategy is to present the product on the market based on its sale price. The competition isn’t necessarily about the lowest prices; there are different ways to compete on price.

A company might choose a Premium pricing strategy, selling high-quality products at high prices, as the leading luxury brands do.

For example, Zegna strategically positions itself as a premium luxury brand. The high prices of its products reflect the exclusivity and superior craftsmanship that the brand offers.

In this way, Zegna appeals to affluent buyers seeking status and prestige.

Another option is to use a Penetration pricing strategy. In this case, a company newly entering the market with an innovative product chooses to sell its products/services at low prices to quickly gain many customers, then gradually raise prices later (Netflix, Gillette, Starbucks).

Quality-Based Positioning Strategy

Basing the positioning strategy on product quality has three major advantages: it easily justifies high prices, produces a very high ROI, and generates a large number of satisfied customers (ready to speak highly of the product they used).

The main risk is being bypassed by brands offering the same product/service at lower prices, even if of inferior quality. For this reason, it’s very important to always pay attention to Buyer Personas, trying to understand whom to target the product based on purchasing habits and income.

An example of a brand that has used this type of positioning is Miele, a company known for selling household appliances. Their products combine quality and technological innovation, ensuring durability and high performance even in demanding environments.

Differentiation Positioning Strategy

In this case, the focus is entirely on the product’s uniqueness and its innovative features compared to traditional competitors. This type of strategy allows companies to attract customers who see innovation as a strong value in their lives. It’s impossible not to mention Tesla, which has definitely created a new league by entering the electric car market.

A potential limitation of the differentiation positioning strategy is the lack of a strong reason to believe in this type of product/service in the market. There won’t be usage examples of a similar product, nor will there be a well-defined perception of the benefits these products could bring to the customer. For this reason, those who decide to pursue this positioning strategy must work hard on the technical narrative of the product, illustrating its design, operation, and benefits derived from its uniqueness.

Subcategories of Differentiation Positioning Strategy

The Differentiation Positioning Strategy can be further divided into two main subcategories: Unmet Customer Need and Product Innovation.

Unmet Customer Need

An approach to brand positioning is to identify an unmet need in the market and position your brand as the solution.

When Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in the 1940s, he identified a need for affordable, high-quality furniture. This realization led to the invention of flat-packed furniture and self-assembly in 1953. As a result, IKEA reduced its production, transportation, and assembly costs, positioning itself as an affordable alternative to expensive designer furniture.

Product Innovation

Innovation in product development gives brands another opportunity to occupy a unique market position. By offering fresh solutions to people’s needs, brands can carve out a unique market position and appeal to those seeking innovation.

Although electric vehicles have been around for a while, Tesla has taken them to a new level with self-driving features, touchscreen user interfaces, modern design, and more. Despite the increasing difficulty of maintaining an innovative edge, Tesla has managed to embody innovation and differentiate itself in the market.

Social Media Positioning Strategy

Leveraging social media in the positioning strategy creates an engaging and interactive experience with customers. This approach allows anyone interacting with the brand to become part of its story.

It’s not necessary to be present on all social platforms; the solution is to choose the channels most used by your target audience. A good test to choose the right platform is to ask where the target spends most of their time, where they spend their money, and where they look for information and advice.

There is a chance that these three questions have a common answer, just as it’s possible that there are multiple answers. In the latter case, each message will need to be tailored to the platform where the customers are.

Distribution Channel Positioning

Positioning the brand through a strategy that leverages its distribution channels is another common option to differentiate from the competition. A distribution model that has gained popularity among several brands in recent years is direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales.

By selling products directly to customers and bypassing traditional retail distribution channels, companies can have full control over the entire customer experience, reduce overall costs, offer more competitive prices, and establish a closer relationship with their customers.

An example is Canyon Bike, a well-known brand among bicycle enthusiasts, which allows its customers to buy a bike and receive it at home without having to go through a physical store, doing everything online.

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Navigating Towards a Product-Market Fit: The Brand Positioning Map

While working on the positioning strategy, the ideal tool to guide its development is the Brand Positioning Map. The map allows you to visually represent the perception of a brand and its competitors and at the same time identify the market gaps that a company should fill to improve the product.

This is done by examining 2 or more key attributes that guide the customer towards choosing a product or service. The suggestion is to create as many maps as possible with different attributes and compare them with each other. This way, it will be possible to analyze from multiple perspectives the gap between customers’ perception of a brand and the desired positioning.

To choose the right attributes to compare, every company can draw from those values that customers consider most important to them (e.g., convenience, price, quality, innovation, etc.). The perception of the product or service is closely linked to these values, those shared within the target audience. Whoever understands them, wins.

How to Reposition a Brand

The Brand Positioning Map is a tool that helps test the current brand positioning strategy even after its implementation.

This allows you to:

• Establish a stronger emotional connection with prospects and customers, helping companies better understand the problems they are trying to solve using their products (their priorities)

• Strengthen the brand’s differentiating qualities during the sales process (have prospects understood what makes the brand unique?)

• Improve the perception that customers have of the value of the brand’s offer

In some cases, analyzing the Positioning Map can also reveal the first warning signs indicating the need for repositioning. The crisis factors can be different and not always predictable. The first step is definitely to try to identify the causes that led the company to negative performance.

This partly requires a process very close to that carried out during the search for positioning. Market research, customer feedback, competitor analysis, and internal company audits are needed to focus on weaknesses and strengths that could create new problems or opportunities in the future.

After identifying the causes requiring repositioning, every company can choose the strategy that best suits reaching a new product-market fit. Here are some examples of useful activities for research.

1. Finding a new target market or niche: rethinking, for example, the product’s destination, from a general audience to a specific niche.

2. Innovating or improving product features and benefits: the launched product may not always have the technical and design qualities in line with the market, making it difficult to highlight distinctive aspects.

3. Working on the price: if the company is ready to sustain high production rates to meet high demand, a low price remains an excellent element to stand out in the market.

4. Focusing on product promotion and distribution: some brands manage to differentiate themselves based on very extensive distribution of their products (they are everywhere) and a very strong media presence (they are everywhere).

References:

• A Complete Guide to Successful Brand Positioning (hubspot.com)

• How can a brand positioning map help your B2B strategy? (equinetmedia.com)

• How To Use Perceptual Mapping for Better Marketing - Shopify Canada

• Brand Mapping: An Effective and Efficient Tool for Marketers - AMA Boston

• SaaS Positioning (market8.net)

It was 2014, and so-called online or digital banks already existed, but we were entering a different market: fintech and challenger banks. Additionally, there was a regulatory issue; as I said, HYPE was not technically a bank; it had authorization from the Bank of Italy to conduct banking activities but was not classified as such. The word bank was thus banned; we couldn't say, for example, "Choose HYPE, your new online bank."

Initially, we tried to associate HYPE with the concept of managing money via smartphone; one of the claims was, indeed, "Control your money with your smartphone." It didn’t work; the concept of an app helping people manage money was still unclear to people, and too much information was missing.

We then thought of a possible competitor: registering with HYPE would get a prepaid card and an IBAN payment code. In Italy, Poste set a precedent with Postepay and its prepaid cards, so why not leverage that advantage in our favor? Everyone knew the benefits of prepaid cards, so we would become the “prepaid card with superpowers.” The rest is history; today, HYPE is one of the leading European realities with nearly 2 million customers.

The power of positioning

Working on brand perception and communicating a message that can be easily deciphered based on the prospect's knowledge is defined as “positioning.”

To be successful today, you must touch base with reality. And the only reality that counts is what’s already in the prospect’s mind. [...] The basic positioning approach is not to create something new and different but to manipulate what’s already in the mind to retie the existing connections.

Al Ries and Jack Strout,
Positioning - The Battle For Your Mind

You must be selective and stand out from market competitors to do this. In today's popular term, developing an STP marketing process (segmentation, targeting, and positioning) is important.

The work done with HYPE was exactly this. First, we identified a broad market segment (all people looking for a simpler and faster way to manage their finances compared to a traditional bank), then we selected a specific target (all those people who wanted to do it at zero cost and through more convenient tools), and finally, we positioned the product on that target with ad hoc communication (the prepaid card with superpowers).

Positioning Framework for B2B SAAS Companies

The work phases that determined HYPE’s positioning are valid for any type of company. Over the years, I’ve worked on different B2B ventures, refined the model, and built a clear and precise framework capable of defining a brand's positioning strategy starting from an external context.

The framework is designed with B2B sales models in mind but can be easily adapted to B2C models. The goal is simple: to understand what a company can do better than its competitors.

1. Market Definition

Imagine participating in a treasure hunt: each clue leads you to a new truth, and each truth brings you closer to the treasure. It’s like a concentric figure; there’s a larger circle and many overlapping smaller circles leading to the core.

In the “positioning hunt,” the first truth a company must conquer (the largest circle) is understanding WHERE to start looking for its ideal customer and consequently identifying its reference market.

The puzzle pieces to assemble are different, and the questions to answer are many:

• Market Landscape: What type of product does the company sell? Is it unique, or are there other companies selling the same product? Which companies operate in this market? What products do they sell, and how many customers do they have?

• Coverage Model: What geographical areas does the company want to operate in? Will it be a local or national business? What sales channels will the company use to ensure coverage of these areas?

• Business Potential: What is the maximum volume of sales and revenue a company can aspire to by working in this market?

• Industry Trends: What are the main growth drivers within the market, and what are the main obstacles?

• Revenue Drivers: What factors drive customers to purchase the product? Are they driven by price? By the product's value? By its innovative potential? By what does it represent?

• Competitive Environment: What are the main forms of market competition, and who are the top 3 competitors?

2. Segmentation

After defining the reference market, the next step is to identify the segments with the highest purchasing potential and where we can thrive with our product.

Depending on the sales model, the company will need to refine WHERE its ideal potential customer profile is in the market. So, it is necessary to map the various segments to select the most interesting one.

To map the market segments, it is necessary to understand the different segments specificity:

• Industries: What sectors does the company prefer to work with, and which ones does it want to avoid at all costs?

• Number of employees: How large will the ICP be? Will it be a small, medium, or large company?

• Keyword: Are there keywords that could help the company more precisely target its customers? For example, all B2B companies that do lead generation.

• Revenues: How much does the client with whom the company will do business generate?

• Location: What is the geographical area where the ICP operates? Does the company prefer to work with clients from specific regions (e.g., for linguistic reasons)?

And understand the segment’s dimensions:

• Average order value: What is the typical deal size?

• Customer Base: How many customers do you have in your customer base?

• Total Available market segment: The number of potential customers and the revenue you could generate.

• Acquisition Target: the number of customers you could conquer and the revenue you could generate.

• Estimated Market Share: the number of customers you could conquer and the revenue you could generate.

For example, if a startup sells logistics services to e-commerce companies, each segment could be defined based on its size: SMB, mid-market, or large enterprise. The deal size will change with the size of the target companies, and the same goes for the number of potential customers.

This will allow for deriving a potential customer base for each segment and its potential revenues.

3. Targeting (Ideal Customer Profile)

Comparing the main segments that emerged, each company can choose the one that best suits its characteristics and identify its target audience (Ideal Customer Profile). After understanding WHERE to look for potential customers, it’s time to understand WHO these customers are and their main characteristics.

Business Function and Job Titles: Who are the potential beneficiaries of the offer, and in which department do they work?

Each will be grouped based on their role in the purchasing process: who is the end-user (the business figures who will operationally use the product/service sold)? Who is the champion (the department in the company that promotes the benefits of the product/service to be purchased)? Who is the economic buyer (the figures within the company responsible for the budget and the final purchase of the product/service)?

Defining these points will help each company understand the basic characteristics of the customers it wants to attract, focusing efforts in a specific direction from the start and avoiding wasting time on potential customers who are not interested in the offer.

4. Identifying the Value Proposition

Having a clear understanding of WHO your ideal customer profile (ICP) is, it is easier to find WHY they buy through the Value Proposition Canvas.

The model consists of two parts: the Customer Profile and the Value Map.

• The Customer Profile should include:

  • Customer Jobs (JTBD - Jobs To Be Done) the customer is trying to accomplish. These could be business, social, or personal/emotional jobs.

  • Gains: the benefits and results gained from accomplishing the customer jobs.

  • Pains: describe anything that annoys your customer before, during, or after trying to get a Customer Job.

    The more information gathered about customers, the more valuable and meaningful the data will be for the research.

• The Value Map helps us understand WHAT they buy.
  Should list the products and services offered (on which the Value Proposition is to be built), how these products and services will help simplify the customer's life, and the benefits the customer will gain from using them.
  These are outputs that make the brand compelling, and that must be understood by audiences. Ideally, at least one of these will be unique to the brand.

Comparing the data from the Customer Profile with the expectations of the Value Map will make it possible to eliminate incorrect hypotheses and optimize the Value Proposition. The goal is to balance customer needs and the proposed solutions to meet those needs and solve their problems. This is what the startup scene calls product-market fit or problem-solution fit.

5. Competitive Analysis

Once the Value Proposition is defined, the company can compare it with that of its competitors and understand how to highlight its strengths that could make a difference in the market.

For this reason, the next step in developing a positioning strategy is studying the competition. Where to start? Obviously, from the reference market identified in the first step. This is the arena where the challenge will take place.

There are various ways to define the competition: market research, feedback from already acquired customers, social media analysis (do not underestimate Quora and Reddit, or prospecting platforms like Apollo)

But each sector has its rules: a small-town clothing store might explore Google Maps to find competitors closest to it; an artisan might start their research by touring trade fairs; and a software company might find information using databases like Capterra, G2, or Crunchbase.

This will allow you to immediately have a list of competitors to analyze. For each of them, a vertical research will then be carried out to define:

• What products or services do they offer, and what promises are made to prospects

• What their strengths and weaknesses are

• What their distinctive elements are

• What benefits do the distinctive elements bring to customers

• What evidence makes the benefits offered credible

For each research project to be successful, it is extremely important to analyze each competitor with utmost impartiality without being sabotaged by potential biases. The analysis will allow the company to obtain the information needed to find a strategy capable of beating the competition.

To understand HOW your product could beat the competition, it is necessary to bundle analyzed data and define:

• Competitor Promise: What is the most common promise to your prospect?

• Company Premise: What is the commonly held belief your prospect has that does not need to be proven or reinforced?

• Unique Attributes: A list of features or attributes that are unique to us.

• Value: The benefit the attribute enables for customers

• Reason to believe → Proof: Supporting points making the message tangible, evidence-based, and realistic.

It could be very useful to use perceptual mapping to identify areas where competitors left a market gap.

6. Organizing Key Messages

All the information and data collected up to this point will need to be synthesized into a series of key messages, which in turn will need to be tailored according to the recipients (end user, champion, economic buyer) and communication touchpoints.

Organizing the messages helps to have clear ideas about all the steps of the positioning strategy and at the same time guides the company towards defining the Positioning Statement, that is, a first concrete hypothesis of positioning: the one that will serve to position the brand in the minds (and hearts) of the prospects.

If the Value Proposition focuses on the element that differentiates a brand from all its competitors, the Positioning Statement focuses on the primary benefits this offers to its customers and why customers should choose that offer.

The most common exercise to define a statement is to answer the following four questions:

• What is the target audience?

• To which market category does the product/service offered belong?

• What is the greatest benefit obtained by using the product/service offered?

• What is the proof of that benefit?

This exercise is often proposed in the form of a simplified diagram:

An effective Positioning Statement should not be longer than 25 words. In addition to this, the following messages should be defined: the brand's tagline, the elevator pitch, the list of distinctive elements of the brand and its products, the list of the main benefits for consumers, and the reason to believe.

Mistakes to Avoid

Arriving at defining a brand’s positioning and tracing a strategy to keep it alive and consistent across all communication touchpoints hides several pitfalls.

One of the most frequent mistakes is getting stuck on studying competitors and their offers. To the question "What would customers use if your brand did not exist?" there is not necessarily an answer. Or rather, the answer might be "Nothing!". The existence of a market void is positive, and positioning oneself first in the minds of prospects concerning a new product is a huge advantage.

Another mistake related to competition is identifying as competitors companies that are not actually competitors, the so-called imaginary enemies. Even if, on paper, a company might compete with us, it might not necessarily be so. Focusing resources on studying these competitors is not only a waste of time but might also lead the company down the wrong path in defining its positioning.

The third mistake concerns the definition of the market. Many startups are indeed convinced that to achieve success (more easily and quickly), it is necessary to create a new market category. Again, not only is there a risk of wasting a lot of time, but also of missing the target: it is much easier to position oneself in an already existing category. The opposite entails a laborious task of communication to explain to people the market in which they operate, the usefulness of the products, and, of course, the perception of the benefits derived from their use.

Conclusions

The use of artificial intelligence could favor the development of increasingly standardized and uniform markets, with fewer poetic licenses and a number of products and services very similar to each other. The same thing could occur in the way brands choose to communicate these products in the market.

Fortunately, the final choice always rests with the customer, based on their needs (old and new), the benefits they wish to achieve, and the difficulties they want to overcome. Working on the perception that the customer has of the brand will therefore remain fundamental and indeed, will make the work on positioning even more decisive for the success or failure of a product.

References:

• Al Ries and Jack Strout, Positioning - The Battle For Your Mind (McGraw-Hill, 2001)

• Guide to Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP) + Examples (pulsarplatform.com)

• Value Proposition Canvas – Download the Official Template (strategyzer.com)

• Brand Positioning Guide for Contract Manufacturers (equinetmedia.com)

• A quickstart guide to positioning - by Lenny Rachitsky (lennysnewsletter.com)

I want to gather all the tools and methodologies I've learned over my years of work and turn them into a manual for startups. Let me be clear: it's not an attempt to convince Lorenzo that the world of startups is the most beautiful of all; I just want a part of my intellectual legacy to pass through here. I want my son to know me even in this aspect. Dad at work.

There isn't necessarily one design approach that is better than another, but each historical period requires different rules for innovation. The Lean Startup method, synthesized by Eric Ries in his 2011 book of the same name, is the most suitable approach for today's market. A market in constant evolution that demands speed, flexibility, and agility.

In the beginning, there was the product.

The cycle of actions (Validated Learning) at the core of the lean methodology is quite simple: development (build), testing (measure), feedback (learn), new development (taking into account previous feedback), new testing, new feedback, and so on in a loop, potentially endlessly.

This cycle might initially seem very similar to past approaches. The difference lies in its starting point, in what is decided to develop (and therefore test). It is no longer a finished product but rather its mini version, a product hypothesis, which, in lean methodology, is termed the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Definition and Characteristics of an MVP

A Minimum Viable Product is the smallest product version that can be introduced to the market (and thus sold).

Every MVP worth its salt must possess 3 characteristics:

• Its perceived value must be sufficient for people to be willing to use that product. 

• Its perceived benefits must be sufficient for people who have started using that product to continue doing so after the first time. 

• Its design must ensure that feedback loop, which will be crucial for guiding the company towards future product developments.

Instagram's MVP, for example, allowed users to share photos and apply some filters. Just enough to enable founder Kevin Systrom to test the product in the social market.

On the other hand, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia of Airbnb relied on a simple web page, where they began advertising short stays in one of the rooms of their apartment. Fun fact: the service included an inflatable mattress and breakfast, hence the name Airbed and Breakfast.

MVP + MVB

In 2012, young Michael Dubin founded The Dollar Shave Club, a startup that sells subscription razors. The product is identical to many other brands; it is nothing new. But Dubin decided to put himself out there and created a launch video to advertise the razor. Two days later, he already had over 12 thousand customers.

Many companies are so convinced of the strength and usefulness of their products that they overlook the importance of a brand strategy. Obviously, they don't have the new iPhone in their hands, but a product like many others.

Developing a brand strategy takes time and money, often scarce resources in a startup. However, the risk of ending up in a box with many other razors is too high. This is why the natural evolution of the lean methodology has given rise to a tool that I consider fundamental for surviving in a context where the supply of products far exceeds demand: the Minimum Viable Brand (MVB).

What is an MVB

Marty Neumaier defines a brand as "a person's instinctive feeling about a product, service, or company." That is the set of characteristics (a name, a sign, a logo, the tone of voice) that identifies and distinguishes the goods and services sold by a company from those sold by competing companies.

A Minimum Viable Brand is the smallest version of a brand that can be presented to the public. With very few resources, it's the tool that allows companies to begin engaging future customers and influencing their behaviors.

Through the MVB, any startup can quickly and with a small budget create an embryonic brand strategy to establish common goals for the entire team, understand the distinctive elements that characterize their products, and study how to retain their customer base.

This mechanism will trigger, once again, that feedback loop (development, testing, feedback) that allows the initiation of a process of continuous brand exploration. A world of many attempts and errors essential to achieve that speed of adaptation to sudden market changes and to reach the Product/Market Fit (on this topic, I will delve deeper in upcoming discussions).

Characteristics of the MVB

Just like the MVP, the Minimum Viable Brand must also possess 3 indispensable characteristics to be effective:

• Its perceived value must be sufficient for people to be willing to use that brand. 

• Its perceived benefits must be sufficient for people who have started using that brand to continue doing so after the first time. 

• Its design must ensure that feedback loop, which will be crucial for guiding the company towards future brand developments.

On paper, the difference with the MVP is minimal, just one word changes, product becomes brand. But in practice, the hierarchies change.

With the MVP, a miniature product is realized, allowing product hypotheses to be tested with few resources. Thanks to the MVB, it can be understood whether those product hypotheses (tested through the MVP) align with the strategic objectives and market insights that emerged during the definition of a brand strategy hypothesis.

The work to achieve these 3 characteristics affects all the work tables open to realize the MVB. The lean machine works well only if all its components are equally lean.

Hence, the need to adapt the macro areas (Strategy, Copywriting, Design) that work on the brand identity:

• Strategy (Minimum Viable Strategy) Developing a sufficiently clear prototype of a strategy to guide the business decisions to be made.. 

• Messaging (Minimum Viable Messaging) Creating a persuasive messaging prototype sufficient to influence people's behavior 

• Design (Minimum Viable Design) Designing a sufficiently coherent design prototype to be remembered among people

How to Develop an MVB

To date, Denise Lee Yohn theorized the best model for developing a Minimum Viable Brand in 2014.

The scope is outlined by answering 6 questions, the so-called "6 What's":

• What we stand for (the brand essence, the reason for its existence) 

• What we believe in (the brand values) 

• What people we seek to engage (the brand's target audience) 

• What distinguishes us (the distinctive points of a brand compared to competitors) 

• What we offer (the company's experience made available to the brand) 

• What we say and show (the logo, the look, the brand concept, and its messages)

The first two questions define the brand's identity. The third, fourth, and fifth establish what the brand does. The last question determines how the brand communicates.

The answer to these questions helps to understand if:

• The brand's objective is clear enough to guide the startup's strategic decisions.

• The size of the designated targets is sufficient to meet the level of demand that the company needs.

• The communication elements work as expected based on the startup's and its customers' use.

Risks to Avoid

The chances of underestimating one of these issues are very high, and the risk of messing up a well-done job is around the corner. Among the aspects many startups underestimate, which I want to dwell on, is undoubtedly the brand's target.

Never take for granted, and I repeat, NEVER take for granted, the type of customers you want to communicate with. Identifying the Ideal Customer Profile (B2B) or Buyer persona (B2C) is crucial.

Let me give you an example. Imagine a startup that, in its exploratory phase, starts selling a payment system aimed at corporates with a Sales-led approach. The reference ICP could be a front liner, an IT manager, or a Chief Innovation Officer. Based on this information, the startup decides that all communication and brand identity must have a premium, formal approach.

The startup encounters the market, competition, and sales cycles, and the lean evolution of the product could require a natural change in strategy. With the pivot, the same startup could find itself selling the payment system to creative agencies, mainly targeting developers or designers. Therefore, the change in target would require an adaptation of all communication assets.

Developing an MVB allows similar events to be faced with the right flexibility and speed, provided that all its elements have received the right treatment during their definition. Not doing so could compromise the MVB's effectiveness and cause a loss of money and time.

How to Organize Work to Answer the 6 What's

A quick and powerful way to answer the 6 What's is Jake Knapp and co.'s 3-Hour Brand Sprint. Through a 3-hour workshop, you can obtain a clear definition of the company's brand identity and avoid neglecting one element in favor of another or vice versa.

Working on an MVB, everything that is not essential can be put aside for later considerations. So, you can avoid thinking about animations, illustrations, and icons, which are certainly a fundamental feature for a successful brand but which, at this stage, can make room for stock solutions capable of expressing the desired mood.

The same goes for product design and communication: website and storytelling are essential for the go-to-market, while custom UI and ad-hoc component development can wait, preferring temporary solutions chosen from various market libraries.

As a detail fanatic and advocate of perfection at all costs, I have come to realize the importance of these aspects in the initial phases of launching a startup or product. To test whether a new startup works, customers must be interested in a specific feature right from the start. The brand is refined over time along the path to defining its identity.

What's Next?

The advancement of AI is further increasing the number of digital products and services offered to businesses and individuals every day. Those that will survive will be fewer, as a percentage, and it will be even more important to reach the market and achieve product/market fit quickly. I therefore believe that the lean approach to brand development will be increasingly widespread and that soon, it will be the only alternative for sustainable business.

Thank you for reading Business Revealed.

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Referenced:

https://www.porchlightbooks.com/blog/changethis/2016/how-to-start-up-your-brand-develop-a-minimum-viable-brand 

https://www.peterjthomson.com/2013/07/minimum-viable-brand-wolff-olins/

https://www.slideshare.net/adrianh/leanuxnyc-leanbranding 

https://uxdesign.cc/building-a-minimum-viable-brand-mvb-958b5d1f476 

https://www.highalpha.com/blog/minimum-viable-brand 

https://hbr.org/2014/06/start-ups-need-a-minimum-viable-brand