I came across a Linkedin comment from Ben Wright recently which I thought was spot on and hence am reproducing it here in full, with commentary after.
10 Key Factors to Consider Before You Start Targeting Your Competitors SaaS Customers
7 Strategies to Win Customers from Your B2B SaaS Competitors
We are also witnessing an increase in new market entrants who seek to replace several disparate apps bringing them all under one-roof placing them in competition with a number of other competitive solutions. Running marketing campaigns targeting switchers rather than relying solely on trying to persuade targets to buy a new software solution for the first time becomes important.
9 Essential Sales Steps You Need to Grow Your B2B SaaS Startup
In the early stages of most SaaS startups’ lives, the CEO or founder often acts as the initial head of sales.
This makes sense given the likely resource constraints and the value to be gained from getting in front of customers from day one. As Jason Lemkin puts it, “The CEO/founder should close at least the first 10 (or 20 or whatever) customers. That way, she knows. She knows the process, what works, what doesn’t. It’s okay if you are ‘terrible’ at it. What matters is that somehow, someway, you still get those 10 paying customers closed.”
How to Gauge if Your B2B SaaS Startup Has Achieved Product Market Fit
Product-market fit is a phrase used to describe the point at which there is *broad* market acceptance for a new application. In recent years many startups have embraced the lean startup methodology as espoused by the likes of Eric Ries and Steve Blank. They argue that startups need to behave differently compared to how real companies do. Startups need to validate the assumptions they are making, and to do so they need to build a minimal viable product and to ‘get out of the building’ to meet prospects and to learn whether or not there is a demand for your fledgling application.