PMF Experimenting Advice (I will not promote)

[u/sorry_canada]

Hey y'all, so I've been working on a b2b saas startup for like 6 months now, we just started getting customers about a month ago and have a 4 fig ARR.

The main thing I'm trying to figure out right now is that multiple different industries are interested in the product and theres a couple different features of the product that they each use so how can I manage all that and narrow down and make the right decision for where to focus all our time and energy.

There's also one use case that I think could be big and I want to explore it and spend time acquiring customers in that space while we're still early to see if that use case/industry has as much potential as I think it might.

Does it make sense to try and spend a certain amount of time doing sales for each use case/industry and based on those track other metrics on the customers we convert?

I don't want to commit to one use case/industry just yet without getting real data to support which is the best opportunity for us, but I'm curious what y'all think.

Thanks in advance!

[u/edoceo]

Pick one to start with. Use experiments to determine which is the best one to start with. Grow into the other ones.

[u/HotDistribution170 → u/edoceo]

Experiments work, but don't let them drag on forever. Set a hard cutoff, maybe 3 to 4 weeks per use case, and track conversion speed along with willingness to pay. The one where prospects move fastest and complain least about pricing is usually your answer.

[u/sorry_canada → u/HotDistribution170]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense if some have higher close rates but take more effort and dont stick around that would be important context to also look at.

Do you think 2-3 days of full sales for each would be reasonable? I'm trying to move super fast but perhaps thats not enough effort and time to really get good data.

[u/sorry_canada → u/edoceo]

Gotcha so I'm thinking about giving each segment a couple days each and doing a bunch of sales stuff and then seeing which I can close the most and what their retention rates are.

Does that seem reasonable? and I can stick with the best segment for a while and really dive deep

[u/edoceo → u/sorry_canada]

Very reasonable 

[u/summaia]

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore if you want a clear rule for picking one use case and ignoring the rest for a while.

[u/sorry_canada → u/summaia]

Hmm interesting, I will check it out to see what he says about who to pick.

Also maybe we tailor our pitch to the innovators and early adopters right now until we get more metrics on customer success? What do you think

[u/Cultural-Project5762]

What exactly is the bottleneck to serving all of these customers?

[u/sorry_canada → u/Cultural-Project5762]

Well we could serve all of them assuming they're all happy with the product, but based on the other advice I've been given its better to pick one type of customer and put all the time and energy into them and making the product as good as possible for that use case.

But I'm no expert maybe you have another perspective?

[u/Cultural-Project5762 → u/sorry_canada]

If you're doing outbound sales, it's important to nail down your use case. I'd argue that this early, you should try your best to accommodate customers if they're willing to work with you. Just given how competitive everything is right now. Feel free to DM me if you need some help here. I'm also building a company, but we're devtools.

[u/sorry_canada → u/Cultural-Project5762]

Pmed

[u/dmdbGroup]

Fixed timeboxes are right, but I'd add one thing nobody in the comments mentioned: run paid as the experiment vehicle, not just sales calls. Give each segment the same $500 to $1000 and the same landing page skeleton, then compare cost per qualified conversation, not just close rate. Sales conversations lie to you, everyone is polite on a call. Money is honest. A segment where 5 calls cost you $80 each and one where they cost $400 is telling you something no CRM stage will. Timebox it to 3 weeks per segment, same budget, and kill fast. I did this with a B2B tool last year and the "obvious" ICP was 4x more expensive to start conversations with than the weird niche we'd ignored. Would never have found it through outbound alone.

[u/sorry_canada → u/dmdbGroup]

Gotcha, thanks so much for the advice hadnt thought about doing paid to determine which niche.

But follow up question how do you know if a segments numbers are weak bc the ad I made was particularly weak vs the segment itself just isn't ideal?

Also why shouldn't you only worry about cost per close rate? why worry about qualified conversation?

[u/dmdbGroup → u/sorry_canada]

Both good questions. The ad-vs-segment worry is real, you just design around it instead of solving it.

1. Run 2 ads per segment with different hooks, budget split 50/50. If both ads flop in segment A and both work in segment B, it's the segment. If one ad flops everywhere and the other works somewhere, it's the ad. Two ads per segment is the minimum before you judge anything.
2. Keep the landing page identical except the headline and one screenshot. Change more than that per segment and you can't compare the numbers at all.
3. On close rate vs qualified conversations: a close is 60 to 90 days out for you, and at four figures ARR you won't have close-rate data worth trusting for months. A qualified conversation (they show up, ask about pricing, give you a real use case) is the leading metric. Optimize the experiments on the leading metric, then validate on revenue later.

Rule of thumb: if you wait for close rate to pick a niche, you'll be picking sometime next year. Judge on conversations now, verify on revenue later.