Article · Field notes
I still don't know how to go to market — so I'm learning it the hard way
16 Feb 2026 5 min read
The technical playbook is consistent. I ship B2C first because it’s the only way to hear the raw customer voice. Catalin Fetean wrote a nice piece on this here. If real people like the app, the engine is good.
B2C growth follows a cruel curve, though. You hit a distribution wall where organic spikes stop and paid growth gets prohibitively expensive.
For most bootstrapped B2C products with zero ad spend, the organic ceiling sits between 1,000 and 5,000 total users.
Getting to that first thousand is about a great product and hitting the right launch threads. Getting past that without a marketing budget or a viral loop is nearly impossible.
So I’ve adjusted. Strip the UI, package the underlying platform, sell it as a B2B2C engine to partners who already have the users I want.
”Interesting” is not a check
In B2B, feedback is often deceptively positive. People sign LOIs and ask for pilots and then the deal never closes.
The Lesson
Until there’s a signed contract, nothing has actually happened. LOIs and warm pilots are mostly just people being polite.
The gauntlet
The path from “nice to meet you” to a signed contract is a slog. For an early-stage B2B2C play, expect:
- Sales cycle: 3 to 6 months for mid-market or enterprise.
- Pilot: usually 30 to 90 days. If it’s longer, the deal is dying.
- Conversion: 20% to 30% of “warm” intros make it to a signed pilot.
Reality check: the “rule of 10”
In the first 6 to 12 months of a B2B pivot, the goal isn’t scale. It’s 10 referenceable customers.
One contract per month is a big win for a founder-led team in the beginning. Each one is a separate set of technical hurdles cleared and legal walls moved, not just revenue.
| Milestone | Target Timeline | Metric for Success |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | Months 1-3 | 50 discovery calls, 0-1 contracts |
| Validation | Months 4-8 | 3-5 active pilots |
| Consistency | Months 9-12 | 1 new contract signed per month |
Avoid the service trap
Early on, a big partner will ask for “just one custom feature” to sign the deal. If that feature only ever serves them, you’ve quietly stopped being a SaaS founder and become an underpaid consultant.
I’ve learned to say no to customisations that don’t improve the core engine for everyone. If you can’t sell the engine as-is, the engine is the problem, not the missing feature.
The price of silence
A flat no is fine. It’s the maybes that bleed you out slowly. The moment a prospect stops responding, deal value drops to zero. Silence usually means a lack of internal urgency. If they aren’t talking to you, they aren’t talking about you internally either. Close the file and move on to the next 100 emails.
When the product is actually killer
A great product doesn’t remove the gauntlet, it just changes who’s pushing. When the value is undeniable, the prospect starts pulling you through their own bureaucracy.
To spot the shift, ignore what people say and watch what they do:
| Strong signals (the “pull”) | Weak signals (the “push”) |
|---|---|
| Asking for security documentation | ”This is very interesting” |
| Introducing the procurement team | ”Let’s touch base next quarter” |
| Negotiating specific pricing terms | Signing a non-binding LOI |
| Asking for a technical rollout timeline | Asking for more case studies |
Automation is a multiplier for zero
There’s a huge temptation to buy a stack of AI-powered GTM tools and blast thousands of leads. For a product without traction, if your message doesn’t resonate manually, AI just helps you fail at scale.
In the early stages, the founder is the one sending emails. You can pivot the value prop mid-conversation. You feel the ouch of a rejection. Real owners respond better to a founding engineer than a BDR.
Cold outreach as a filter
Cold outreach is a clarifier. Selling to SMB or mid-market partners, the numbers are a reality check. A healthy campaign realistically yields a 1% to 3% positive reply rate.
Send 100 targeted emails, get 2 or 3 people on calls, and the value prop is working. For a lean team, the sweet spot for founder-led sales is 50 to 100 high-intent, manual outreaches per week.
The math: 100 emails → 3 replies → 1 discovery call → 0.2 closed deals.
That’s roughly 5 weeks of consistent outreach for a single high-quality partner. The product usually isn’t the problem. Founders just quit around week three, before a single contract has had time to land.
Still the most efficient way to build
The modular approach is still the most capital-efficient way I know to build. Validate the tech before spending months in a sales cycle. One closed contract changes the trajectory.