10 Steps To Build a B2B Startup That Attracts Clients and Investors
3 min readJul 12, 2024
Are you unsure how to create a B2B business that will draw in both clients and investors? I have a foolproof method for you! I kid you not.
- Talk to your friends or business owners in non-tech Industries
Begin by having conversations with friends who are business owners in non-tech sectors like logistics, real estate, or manufacturing. These discussions will provide you with initial insights into various industries outside the tech bubble. - Identify their biggest pain points
Ask each of them about their biggest challenges or problems that cost them too much money. Avoid generic problems like “hiring” or “increasing costs”. Look specifically for inefficiencies that could be solved with smart automation. This will help you pinpoint issues that have a significant impact on their operations and finances. - Conduct market analysis
Perform a thorough market analysis to determine how many similar businesses exist in your initial market, and globally. Estimate how much each of these businesses would be willing to pay annually for a service that resolves their problem. You just got your market size! - Validate your hypothesis with broader outreach
Contact at least a hundred companies in several countries to see if they face similar issues. This will help you determine:
- Whether the problem is unique to your friend or common across the industry.
- How easy it is to connect with potential clients and their openness to implementing improvements. - Develop your product if interest is high and market is big
Only continue to point 6 if all of the following points are true:
- you were able to reach out to at least 20% of your initial leads,
- more than half of those leads show interest,
- the potential aggregate yearly spend for your product (that you calculated in point 4) is at least $1B globally.
If these criteria aren’t met, don’t be discouraged. Return to point 1, refine your approach, and remember: successful startups often emerge from persistent iteration and resilience. You’ve got this! - Build the MVP
Congrats! You have identified a potential unicorn idea! Now it’s time to build. Immerse yourself in your friend’s company structure. Ideally work from their office to observe processes and understand the responsibilities of each employee. Build relationships. Talk to the end users of your tool and build the initial version of the product with their feedback. - Implement a pilot version of your product
Once the MVP “somewhat works” (it shouldn’t take you more than a few weeks in most cases) choose a small group of employees. Onboard them patiently. Be the best customer care specialist you can imagine to make sure they start using the product daily. - Iterate on the product until the employees find it indispensable.
This may take anything from a few weeks to a few months. Stop when more than half of the users tell you they cannot imagine coming back to the previous process now that they use your tool. - Start selling!
Once you have a reliable product tested with your first customer, begin selling it to other companies. You already have a list and contacts from your market research, right? - Approach investors for seed funding
Hopefully you were able to make a few sales to early adopters by now. At this point, approach investors for a seed round. With proper customer research, big market and initial traction I guarantee they will line up to finance your startup. I certainly would!
You made it! I did not say it was supposed to be easy, but it really is a foolproof method to build a startup that both customers and investors love. If you are working on one, you know where to knock!
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At SMOK Ventures we invest in pre-seed founders in the CEE region & diaspora.
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