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Stop Losing Leads: How to Fix Your B2B Startup Positioning Architecture
Most B2B tech startups hit a ceiling when founder-led sales and marketing stalls growth. When they assess why their pipeline has stalled, they almost always assume they have a demand generation problem. However, a deeper analysis usually uncovers that the actual pain point is a fractured positioning and go-to-market (GTM) architecture. So, how can B2B tech startups diagnose and fix their positioning architecture to ignite more robust, predictable , and sustainable growth?
That’s why we’re talking to return guest Adrijana Daragon (Founder, GTM Advantage), who shares her expertise and insights on how to fix your B2B startup positioning architecture. During our conversation, Adrijana shared some of the common pitfalls B2B that cause tech startups to fail, specifically focusing on the disconnect between product features and market needs. She stressed the critical importance of early market validation and understanding customer needs instead of obsessing over the technology and features. Adrijana also explained why founders must narrow their focus to specific ideal customer segments to ensure their messaging truly resonates with potential buyers. She concluded by highlighting the value of continuous iteration and learning from pilot projects to refine GTM strategies and attain scalable, predictable growth.
https://youtu.be/mO99oSKyYGE
[02:56] Why startups often mistake a positioning and go-to-market architecture problem for a lack of market demand
[04:30] The reason targeting the right ICP fails if the customer lacks a sense of urgency or purchasing intent
[05:17] How to identify when a founder becomes a growth bottleneck during the transition to a delegated team model
[10:49] The danger of “fake validation” from startup ecosystems versus getting reality checks from actual buyers
[21:30] Why increasing marketing budgets is ineffective if your messaging fails to connect with the customer’s problem
[30:51] How narrowing your focus to a single industry enables faster iteration and more scalable traction
[39:36] Using a growth mindset to define success criteria, turning pilot projects into long-term client relationships
Companies and links mentioned:
TranscriptAdrijana Daragon, Christian Klepp
Adrijana Daragon 00:00
Founders think about the go to market as a post, post activity, versus doing it early on, so meaning they are really of over focus on technology alone and thinking when the talk technology will be the product will be launched, that’s when the customers will come, especially like if the founders are engineers or coming from the medical background, this is the domain. This is where the this is the comfort zone. So they are really focusing on the technology. And that’s true, this is like bigger competitive advantage, but the commercial part, getting really early on understanding who are the market, what’s the feedback, even integrating that into a building technology so important.
Christian Klepp 00:43
Most B2B tech startups hit a wall when founder-led marketing stalls growth. When they analyze where they went wrong, they almost always assume they have a demand problem. But when you look deeper, you realize that their real pain point lies in their positioning and go to market architecture. So how can B2B startups fix their positioning architecture problem to ignite more robust and sustainable growth? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Adrijana Daragon, who will be answering this question. She’s the founder at Go To Market (GTM) Advantage, who helps turn go to market into a predictable pipeline and revenue for B2B tech startups. Let’s dive right in. Okay, and off we go. I’m gonna say, Adrijana Daragon, welcome to the show.
Adrijana Daragon 01:30
Hello. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Christian.
Christian Klepp 01:33
Great to be connected again, Adrijana. And I’m gonna say thank you to Anna Wondany from Hey CMO, for connecting us. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we’re going to talk about something that, on the surface doesn’t seem like it’s extremely important, but we’re going to start unpacking that, and then we’ll realize like, oh, wow, we really should be paying attention to this. Take some notes, learn and be inspired no?
Adrijana Daragon 01:58
Yes, true. I’m really excited about it, and I can see really quite some founders can benefit from this knowledge.
Christian Klepp 02:05
Absolutely, absolutely. So if you don’t mind, we’ll, we’ll just jump straight in, and I’ll ask you the first question. So you’re, I’m going to say, on a mission to help B2B Tech scale ups, grow and increase their inbound leads. But for this conversation, I’d like to focus on this following topic, and then we can unpack it from there. So the topic is how B2B startups can fix their positioning architecture problem. Now that sounds like a really fancy marketing term, but we’re going to unpack it now and then everybody will realize, like, how crucial this actually is. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with the following question. So Adrijana, in our previous conversation, you mentioned that most B2B startups think they have a demand problem, but in reality, when you dig deeper, what they actually have is a positioning and go to market architecture problem. So can you please explain that?
Adrijana Daragon 02:56
Sure. So it’s highly depends on the stage the startup scale up is it’s different challenges. There are different challenges at the beginning, when there is early stage. Startup is about just doing different tests, trying the founders, typically the one that driving the sales and marketing efforts and connecting, getting the early feedback, validating it afterwards, when it starts to be already, you gain traction. You know, you had a successful especially in deep tech. It’s a lot about the pilot, securing both successful pilots, moving from the pilots to for to the ongoing client relationships. That’s when the it’s becomes much more about challenge of not only trying, testing different activities, but really seeing how what really makes sense, because there are a lot of challenges when you have a lot of activities, but we don’t bring the results, we don’t bring the revenue You want, and that’s especially when I work with startups. When we have both conversations, we have the initial demand, interest, especially interest. We have those conversations with potential clients, however they don’t convert. And that’s really where we are, kind of talking about the not originally positioning itself a problem, but it’s also about the go to market. And one big mistake clients do is when they focus on the target ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), but the target ICP, it doesn’t have a sense of urgency to buy, so the purchasing intent is not there. So that’s why, like a lot of times, you have a lot of internet conversations, everybody says, so your solution looks really interesting. However, that doesn’t result in result in the sales?
Christian Klepp 04:55
Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, you brought some really great points there, and I add two follow up questions for you. So I think the first one, especially when you’re talking about startups, and I can’t help but ask you this question, but do you sometimes feel when you’re interacting with your clients, especially when you’re trying to address these problems with them? Do you sometimes feel that it’s the founder that is the bottleneck?
Adrijana Daragon 05:17
It’s true as well. Like you know, as a startup grows as well, the founder learns a lot, and it’s also, it’s a big growth journey as well, big growth journey. And as well activities we do. The mindset also shifts with every stage. So there are like, different stages of a company. When it’s founding team, it’s small team. When you bring the first, highest, first outsource, outsourcing that depends already, where you need to communicate clearly that to delegate what you want actually to achieve. So these people know your vision and goals. That’s really when it starts to be the first bottleneck of really making when you are bringing more people, how the it can they can work most effectively as well as a team?
Christian Klepp 06:08
Yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely. So that’s, that’s the first question. The second question is, and I know you and I both know what positioning is, but I feel for people outside the marketing discipline, they throw that, that statement or that word around very freely. So let’s just clear the air there a little bit, and just please break it down for us. What does positioning mean, and how is it relevant to inbound and revenue and other things like that?
Adrijana Daragon 06:39
I think it’s there are multiple aspects, but this positioning is more. What do you want to stand in there, in in the minds of and hearts of other people? How do you want to be for them? Be remembered so it’s not only remembered so that people can say and articulate also well, what you do for yourself, uh, yourself. And then obviously, ideally, that also, it’s repeatable, that also the clients and the rest can say, and that’s not that easy sounds, but it’s not only one statement, positioning statement, and when it’s all done, positioning is a lot about work together, the about the ICP and for the ICP, so ideal client profile? And that’s a lot about understanding, especially if it is multiple industries, multiple especially on enterprises or like, there are big buying cycles, who are the right people. So it’s a buying center. There are a lot of people who are users, who are economical buyers, decision makers. So this is a lot about work on this ICP and value propositions for each of them will be different. So the positioning work also includes this value proposition, especially linking what’s the value, what’s the value, what are the problems they have, and how you help your solution helps that to work. So it’s like customer centric communication about the solution, which is very hard sometimes for the tech startups, who are typically over investing in the technology, and they talk about the features, but not so much in the customer language, about really deeply understanding customer understanding who they are and what they do, what are the problems and how it solves? And the big missing piece, and which is what I have in my methodology, where I work, and this is really important, crucial part not to miss, is the part of when, not only who, but then, and that when part is about urgency, sense of urgency. Do does the target, ICP, know that we have this problem? We are aware about it. Do they actively seek solutions? And you are at this stage, at this stage, so because the right person, but the wrong moment, zero outcome. So it’s, the sale will not be done. So it’s, this is especially important. While a lot of pilot conversations, like after discovery calls stall is because of this that they have this interest. However, the urgency is not there, and it’s a lot in especially with good AI solutions, or, like really talking about long term innovations, because it requires a lot of change of the behavior system processes, how they work currently, with how we do business. Currently, be aware. But this is this problem. But are we really actively looking to change solution? And currently that’s very important part of as well work of his overall positioning, because that will mean otherwise, you just have a lot of conversations, conversations, and really very small amount of them, lead. Leading to the really close, close deals.
Christian Klepp 10:03
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I like how you said, like, right person, wrong time, that almost sounds like dating situation. It’s also transferable to the world of like, customers, right? And that’s absolutely true, because if you identify, if you identify the right target audience, but this is not the right time, right? Because it’s a different because you always have to look at the different stages of their journey, right?
Adrijana Daragon 10:25
Yes.
Christian Klepp 10:25
And unfortunately, in B2B, whether it’s tech or otherwise, the buyer, the buyer cycles tend to be a bit longer, right?
Adrijana Daragon 10:35
Yes.
Christian Klepp 10:36
Absolutely so, based on what you said, and I know you brought up already one of them, but like, based on what you’ve said in the past couple of minutes, what are some of the key pitfalls you would say B2B marketing teams need to avoid, and what should they do instead?
Adrijana Daragon 10:49
Yes, so for me, really the I see that founders think about a go to market as a post, post activity versus doing it early on. So meaning they are really of over focus on technology alone and thinking when the talk technology will be, the product will be launched, that’s when the customers will come. That’s the one that typically, especially like if the founders are engineers or coming from the medical background. This is the domain. This is where they this is the comfort zone. So they are really focusing on the technology. And that’s true, this is like bigger competitive advantage, but the commercial part, getting really early on understanding who are the market, what’s the feedback, even integrating that into a building technology so important. So that’s the common pitfall about starting it early. It needs to be still very lean in beginning, it’s more lean. And one of the key things of lean activities is about thinking who are the customers, exactly who are the right customers, and then having that early validation. So it follows also to the second point. So one was early. Think about go to market earlier than when you typically do. Second is real versus fake interest. So what I mean, a lot of founders live in them more, sometimes in the bubble of their ecosystem, meaning like they are get the early positive feedback from incubators, accelerators they are in, as well the different support groups, plus also our startup founder saying, Oh, your solution. Can you give me feedback on your solution? Yes, it sounds interesting. Your technology is really interesting. Yeah, it should be interesting, and that’s what we take it as a given feedback. Okay, I validated. I got this initial interest. However, this is not the target audience who would actually buy so these are the kind of I call it a fake validation. It’s good to get also support system. To get this, because it’s really long journey entrepreneurship and having building the startup, you need this support system. However, you also need to have reality checks. And the reality checks are really thinking and going in the market and having conversations, if you are having a solution, let’s say in medtech, selling to the hospitals, so then going and actually talking to you. How does it sound? That feed? Obviously, it’s harder to get into that contact. There are some ways where we could do, do it, but this is really very critical moment when you get the actual feedback from the person who would will in, will be so valuable in creating your product. And then also, what are the different criteria they look at, what is really the what are the propositions we are looking at and how we make the decisions, and that’s very important as well, to make sure that you get that early on. So these are the few pitfalls. I would say.
Christian Klepp 14:14
These are the few pitfalls, but they are super important.
Adrijana Daragon 14:17
Oh yes.
Christian Klepp 14:18
They’re so important that I have to ask you some follow up questions. Okay, so based on the first one right when you’re talking about who are the right customers and getting that early validation, how, in your experience, is there a right way to get early validation?
Adrijana Daragon 14:35
It’s there is not only one way, there are many, many ways, but it’s just very important. Is also the mindset of it’s active listening. It’s more about you have your own idea and you’re in love with your product. That’s why you have a startup. It’s also very important to be open for the feedback, and good and bad feedback is also very important. So there are some a typically like also for the research, where you don’t guide the questions yes or no. You want to dig deeper. That’s also very important. It’s more, I think it’s the mindset, where you go you really eager to learn. You go there to eager to learn and to really listen and to understand. That’s the journey, when you want to understand your potential client, how you can really make the life easier. That’s the way. It’s a little beyond going journey where it’s really almost saying that the product market fit happens also a very similar in similar time. Then you can describe and talk the problem of the customer better than the customer himself or herself. So that’s the it’s a journey so you will but this is like really knowing that, that it’s important to hear from them, versus have only the inside view, which is and really seeking those conversations and have this open mind mindset is super important.
Christian Klepp 15:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. I totally agree with that. Okay, so that was the first follow up question. The second follow up question, which I think is so important, based on what you said, this reality check, right? Because, you know, we, I have some experience with this as well, like, you know, it’s especially talking with a founder, and they’re in their team, and I always, I always call it like the internal high five, right? The internal High Five means, okay, we built a great product. Boom, fantastic. And then, and then internally, it’s like, I believe the market needs this because of the and I don’t agree that they need this because of what, whatever the reason. And everybody internally agrees. But you and I both know that, as marketers, it doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help us to just agree with a lot of these I’m calling them internal hypotheses. So from your experience, how do you get these startups, the founders and their teams to accept that while you can have this hypothesis, you also need to have a proper reality check to validate everything that you’re saying internally. Because sometimes as you, as you well, know not all founders, but many founders. Is it the mindset internally is, my baby is the most beautiful baby in the world. Don’t you dare insult my baby. All right. So how do you get them out of this mindset? How do you get them to be like, okay, you know, in order to grow, in order to scale, you have to be open to validation for the market. How do you how do you get them? How do you get them to that point?
Adrijana Daragon 17:35
Sure, so I think here it’s super important is to have different people in your support system, and very in a closed network, and part of the founders have the personal network, especially when they or we have advisory boards, part of a board who are really, typically people come from the industries differ, or they have also have done the startups. Of could be ex founder, founders who have successful exits. Or it can be, especially in some specialized tech, it can be really coming advisors from the industry who really know more more about the target clients, what’s the problem and how and the typical challenges the startup can occur, and that’s very important about utilizing it. So it’s also up to the to the person who is if it’s they have active role as an advisor or the senior expert, or only given a fractional, fractional person who really can help and structure or some of go to market is really to have this open dialog. So it’s not about really just exactly have this consensus, consensus atmosphere, that it’s okay. What the founder is saying when we would just would work on this is it’s very important to challenge that and to challenge that early on, because that’s when it’s really this diversity of expertise, and especially this relevant expertise, is super important to build around and actually leverage in the right way, asking the big questions not working in the silos. So it’s more about really, that sometimes with advisory boards, they are more the name. It’s more for the VC (Venture Capital), plus also for some of yes presentations, events, so for more of trust building. However, it’s really as well. The how I see the founders who get much more benefit is really who use, use the senior experts in the right way of having almost milestone checks really saying this is what we are working on. Let’s look back, and this is why we didn’t gain those pilots. While we did a lot of effort, we had a lot of conversations with those enterprises, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Let’s review that, and it’s more like bringing one level high of really bad view and challenge some of the assumptions which were there before.
Christian Klepp 20:33
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And what you said is also really important, getting everybody to stop working in silos and exposing them to the to the to the bigger ecosystem. So we were talking about, like, dealing with pushback, and unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you for more advice on that, because the next question is about something that I think you’re very familiar with, right? Because you’re dealing with a lot of these B2B tech startups. How do you deal with pushback from founders? You know, when you tell them that, listen, you don’t have a demand problem, you have a positioning and go to market architecture problem, and they look at you as if you’re like, What are you talking about, right? What is this positioning? What is this go to market architecture? This sounds to me like a waste of time, right? But how do you, how do you convince them that it’s, it’s, in fact, in their interest to deal with this, and how do you deal with that pushback?
Adrijana Daragon 21:30
Yes, it’s more it’s also depends on the stage like which, how big it is, not over engineer some of activities early on. So it’s, yes, the demand is needed. But there’s also that the big risk is if we put especially, they get, sometimes the funding over and they press P dial on marketing budget. Advertising, I have seen that and then, and they are not very, very clear who are the right client, and especially as we talked who then do they, and especially in a bigger organizations targeting so we could really put a lot of advertising in the right target audience with a wrong message, and they could. And no surprise, the results don’t, don’t come afterwards, the deals are not coming those people, they might join your mailing list webinar, and that’s so far as we get, because we, most probably, we were just interested in what’s new out there. However, they are not really the right person who in the organization deciding this all it is really about your messaging didn’t connect to the problem, and they wouldn’t even book a call afterwards with the sales team. So this is the way I see it’s where it’s really about looking overall, about full funnel, not only about saying, if we get big volume of people leads, then everything will be okay. It’s it’s much more about lower volume, but of a right, right leads that will create less house, less activity. Because you can, you can really mistake a lot of activity will give a lot of good results. It’s more sometimes really stripping down, seeing really what’s working. And it requires somebody who would understand that really looking at the data, looking what, what are the different tests? What resonates? This is the stage when you typically did some tests. Early on, you are still at the stage of trying and working and understanding, but at the stage when you did some now it’s a time to really look at it review and see where you double down and what you don’t focus on. It’s always, I think it’s in sales and marketing is a lot about where do you put priorities? Where do you focus on and more, I think sometimes less the activities, but really, very clearly, can really simplify also the team effort to get into those deals, because sometimes the deals had stalled in the middle, but you didn’t have time because you were so busy. But if you would take time review it, maybe adjust the positioning, and then revive the conversation that could lead to this, to the to big ticket or deal, and that will will be much more important, versus doing extra trials on marketing.
Christian Klepp 24:36
That’s exactly it. And you, I think you hit on something that is worth repeating. It’s also a lot about the strategy, right? Like a lot of a lot of startups that I’ve seen, they jump straight into the execution, right? Like you talked about it, like ads and then and lead generation. And I’m not saying that those things are not important. They are, but if you don’t have that understanding. Who the target audience is, and you don’t have a strategy in terms of, like, how you’re going to approach the market, you’re just going to be burning through money. And you and I both know how much ads cost, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s like a vacuum cleaner now. But you touched on something that I think it’s worth revisiting and going back to, because it’s again. I know it might sound a bit repetitive, but why is it so important for them to understand, or have a deep understanding about who this potential customer is? Right? Why is it important for them to know that, and why is it important for them to understand the buyer’s journey? Because, you know, depending on what stage of the journey these people are in, they may have different motivations, or they may have different reasons for looking for a product or solution.
Adrijana Daragon 25:49
I think it’s, it’s really important. That will make or break your traction and more, and that’s really the part of understanding and speaking in about the customer, sometimes even better than the customer themselves. Makes the customer really feel you understand you are credible, you build… I can trust you. And that’s really it says speed dial. It’s a speed dial to really, to retraction, to really, this is what is important part is to especially in B2B, you, it’s building credibility and trust so that you really know, yes, you have a great credentials in terms of a technology that your solution. That’s important part. However, the equally is also important, the the understanding commercially how this technology can help your customers. It’s really about your customers, especially when we talk about you, mentioned about buying centers and complex organizations. That’s when it’s really thereby. It’s a lot about reducing risks. It’s a lot about minimizing transition costs. So it’s more about that you are not really too risky for them to to buy from. And this is it goes beyond the technology. It’s a lot about understanding and talking in the language of a customer that you have discovered very clearly, very proactively, in first, in your mind, when afterwards, all your communication. And this is where it comes the strategy is super important. But I see it’s it’s not a strategy where you need just a document, somebody quickly did it, or like now, it’s the AI or somebody out of touch. It requires, as well, real validation. So that’s where it’s important. The strategy with validation, which is not on paper document, it’s really about kind of almost agreement of what’s the core, or what’s the core, what we are doing, trying to achieve, and how the way we trying to achieve that. So this helps you, is for the founder, for the rest of the team, and then we are talking about gaining traction, bring the rest of together. The strategy changes over time. Some elements the market also adjusts. Technologies adjust, but this is super important part of stop wasting time on of doing too many activities and really looking at what, what really will move a needle.
Christian Klepp 28:39
Wait a second, you mean that the strategy has to be adjusted. I thought the strategy is just something you do one time and then you forget about it.
Adrijana Daragon 28:49
I think it’s that’s why, that’s what this gets a lot of times. I think it’s as well in a tech companies, they do especially early stages that pitch documents thinking overall, that’s the part of saying what’s addressable market. So say we did, we have our covered. I have our go to market. We have our plan. That’s it’s great. It gives us some of her some it’s already good starting points, but there is much more on that. It’s really ongoingly effort, and that’s why it’s why there are really the teams who succeed. Is really the founder, is leading the sales and marketing organization. And then they are, they are close to the customer. So it’s not only to the product, but we need to be close to the customer. And then they are like, really bridge, bridging the gaps as well as we go, because it’s also the different challenges. But being close to the customer and hearing that and not working in a silo and bringing back that knowledge is super important. And so it’s that document changes a lot of times. It’s, it’s, can be, it’s not 180 story. It’s. Sometimes it will be big pivots. There are pivots as well. You scrap your current product, and you see that some of the one leg can really move forward, like there are examples like Spotify, and I was wherever I started and they landed. But this is moving. It’s a moving piece, not one set in stone piece.
Christian Klepp 30:22
Right. So I think for this next question, if you really want to get very deep, it will take us several hours to talk about it, but just in the interest of time, maybe you can just give us a top level perspective, right? Just based on your own experience, walk us through how the B2B startups should fix their positioning, go to market architecture problems. So just give us the key steps. What are the key components that need to be in that process?
Adrijana Daragon 30:51
I think it’s in beginning, especially it’s important of looking at and picking one target customer. So one industry, one target customer, thinking about your resources. It’s a lot about your resources, especially a lot of technologies are agnostic. So that’s the typical pitfall of saying it’s for everyone, but it’s almost for nobody, really. So it’s about picking one of the customer target, and that’s typically comes either which one you are familiar with, where you come, come from, or you have great access to as well. So it’s really there. You can see it’s it helps you to validate early, to get access to real people, talk to them, to see, to see, to get that feedback, fine tune and not over developer MVP (Minimum Viable Product). MVP like the first products a lot of times as well, because that’s really what we talked that it comes together together, that MVP, it will be most of the times. You will scratch it. You will build a next level moving forward. But this will help you to launch, launch, and iterate faster and not always spend time. There is a difference in deep tech. It takes time, sometimes 10 years, 10 years based on the research. So there are nuances as well. So it’s not there as well, but this is very important part of narrowing the focus in beginning will help you to grow, to go faster, to go faster and to really get the right right customers. And this, it’s very important for the to validate that with few customers, not only one, to really see if it is a scalable solution. So hence, we talking about the depth and breadth of a customer early on. So here we are talking about because sometimes here the risk is of choosing one customer. It’s almost fully designing it for that customer, to the point that is almost only relevant to that customer based on their requirements. So it’s seeing how you could leverage that pilot that you can really also offer to others afterwards, how? So it’s really things are thinking about the pilot in the right way, and here it’s so it’s more about who would be the few clients and how deep you can go. So for the pilots it can help you land in those companies. But afterwards, how you can move from the pilots to the full full projects, which we pay the bigger, bigger school projects. So this is the important I think, in a short period of time, I think that’s the important part of thinking about how you could get this early traction, and the early traction which is scalable. So these are fundamentals of thinking of okay, when you have this in the right way, then you see this breadth and depth of the customers, which you prove the point with, multiple of the customers. Then we got the feedback from the right customers. Helps you to grow faster. Moving on.
Christian Klepp 34:23
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I love how you also led with, like, narrowing the focus. And I think that’s so important. A lot of these, a lot of startups like you said, like, Okay, this is, this is for, you know, different different verticals, or the, you know, we have customers in different industries, but in the beginning, if you, if you have that mindset, and you approach the market that way, and I think you brought it up earlier on in the conversation, you start to spread yourself so thin. And a lot of these startups don’t have 500 employees, right? So, you know, it’s a handful of people, if they’re, if there’s 10 people in the startup, that’s already like, wow, I. Right? But there’s, there’s only a few people, and especially there’s only a few people responsible for business, right, and client acquisition. So if you start already in the beginning, spreading them so thin, how are you ever going to scale, right? Yeah, okay, fantastic. But okay, so maybe this is a question that you probably know the answer to. But I think it’s really important to put it into context, because when you say, narrow the focus, how do you get startups to narrow the focus, especially when they say, well, we built this tool, and it’s for different industries. How do you get them and especially because there’s a lot of people on LinkedIn saying, oh, narrowing the focus. That’s, that’s lazy advice. I disagree with that, by the way, but, um, but how do you get them to narrow the focus? How do you get them to just zero in on one particular vertical.
Adrijana Daragon 35:52
So here, I can give a few examples. I think it is here. It’s really depends on, on, also the industry. How narrow is the narrow?
Christian Klepp 36:03
Absolutely.
Adrijana Daragon 36:04
So typically, my advice would be, you think that you are narrow, go even further.
Christian Klepp 36:09
Okay.
Adrijana Daragon 36:10
Go fever further, because it’s not only the big industries, but who are within the industries. And specifically, if you are saying, let’s say it’s technology solution. Technology solution of improving the productivity. And you care for enterprises. That’s typically a lot of enterprises, but if you choose one specific industry, saying these are the typically processes they have to improve, okay? But then there are a lot of teams, and within the teams, there are also the hierarchy, so understanding really more specific use cases. So that’s the typical way of thinking about where are the few use cases where you could really solve really well, and sometimes they come as exactly because you had the access to the market you can really have it’s easier for you. It’s more accessible, accessible one. But it’s also looking if it is, can be repeatable, repeatable, that there are various potential as well, moving forward, moving forward, forward. So there it’s, it’s, I think people are very scared, and other founders I work with of being too narrow, too narrow, but exactly as we talk about, it’s very small team. It’s better to have 10 earlier, like pilots, but it’s really been closed and you have strong learnings versus 100 of nice to have conversations and maybe few, but never really even have use cases closed in the multiple, multiple areas. This is where, like it happens that that going narrow. It really helps. And in in some very niche already, solutions like robotics, for the specific area, it takes really time as well to solve any problem, learn really depth about the customer. So you cannot spread yourself too thin on many, customers there. So the time in deep tech it takes to solve the problem, this is the especially I recommend in deep tech, very specific area to get the traction it’s really important to get it’s a narrow one, because this is where you invested a lot in the research a young competitive also differentiation on what’s the technology so it’s better solving really, truly well for amount of customers, and that’s really the build up, versus of going broad and losing this even the trust and credibility in the market.
Christian Klepp 38:59
Absolutely, absolutely. You know, as you were explaining this, which I think you explained really well, it almost sounds like you have to get them to conduct an experiment. You remember, back in the school days, we were conducting experiments, and then we have to record the results, right? And then, okay, what worked, what didn’t work? Okay, what worked, scale, what didn’t work, stop, right? Or, or pivot, yeah, change the approach, right? We have to find out why didn’t it work? Right? What were the reasons? What was the feedback? Right? So it’s almost like, it’s almost like you have to have this experimental slash growth mindset.
Adrijana Daragon 39:36
Yes, yes. That’s very important. I think it’s this growth mindset. It’s really there you are. It’s continuous iteration and learning. It’s learning as well. It’s also about asking the questions, being in the asking the questions, having a not this paralysis of no action. So you need to have the action for your actions, but the also thinking about, what is it behind? What would really we need to do to make this pilot successful? What, and also, when you are talking with a customer early on, on the pilot, super important is to ask, what needs to happen in this pilot. What are the success criteria for us to move from the pilot to the full project afterwards. So that’s the one like it helps tech as well to structure this experiments in the right way, in the right way, versus just when you are spreading to fin, you almost show the demo. Demos, give the solution, and then leaving the customer almost alone. So you didn’t give full, full effort in those pilots as well to get the right even the data behind.
Christian Klepp 40:51
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Adrijana, this was such a great conversation, and you know, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. So please give us a quick introduction and how people out there can get in touch with you, especially if they’re in the B2B Tech or health startup space in Switzerland and Europe.
Adrijana Daragon 41:11
Yes, sure. So I am go to market advisor and fractional CMO, or Chief Revenue Officer for B2B tech companies. I’m based in Switzerland. I operate with many European and also US companies who typically are still at the stage of founder led sales and marketing activities. And I support them, moving from heavy activity random sales to repeatable way of winning deals. And my company is called go to market advantage. So go to gtmadvantage.ch you can find also resources there as quick diagnostic tool as well. So it’s a three five minutes tool for them as well to get some of the low hanging fruits, what typically go to market challenges they have, and it gives them as well, some advice. And I’m happy to also, yes, share more of the discovery calls.
Christian Klepp 42:22
Fantastic, fantastic, and we’ll be sure to put a link in the show notes when this episode comes out. So once again. Adrijana, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.
Adrijana Daragon 42:32
Thank you.
On this podcast, we’re on a mission – to change and disrupt the way people think about B2B marketing one insightful conversation at a time. Get inspiration from interviews with B2B marketers and industry experts who share their stories, achievements, thoughts on trending topics, and give B2B marketing tips and recommendations. This show is hosted by Christian Klepp, Co-founder of EINBLICK Consulting.
Founders think about the go to
market as a post, post activity,
versus doing it early on, so
meaning they are really of over
focus on technology alone and
thinking when the talk
technology will be the product
will be launched, that's when
the customers will come,
especially like if the founders
are engineers or coming from the
medical background, this is the
domain. This is where the this
is the comfort zone. So they are
really focusing on the
technology. And that's true,
this is like bigger competitive
advantage, but the commercial
part, getting really early on
understanding who are the
market, what's the feedback,
even integrating that into a
building technology so
important.
Most B2B tech startups hit a
wall when founder-led marketing
stalls growth. When they analyze
where they went wrong, they
almost always assume they have a
demand problem. But when you
look deeper, you realize that
their real pain point lies in
their positioning and go to
market architecture. So how can
B2B startups fix their
positioning architecture problem
to ignite more robust and
sustainable growth? Welcome to
this episode of the B2B
Marketers on a Mission podcast,
and I'm your host, Christian
Klepp, today, I'll be talking to
Adrijana Daragon, who will be
answering this question. She's
the founder at Go To Market
(GTM) Advantage, who helps turn
go to market into a predictable
pipeline and revenue for B2B
tech startups. Let's dive right
in. Okay, and off we go. I'm
gonna say, Adrijana Daragon,
welcome to the show.
Hello. Thank you. Thank you for
having me, Christian.
Great to be connected again,
Adrijana. And I'm gonna say
thank you to Anna Wondany from
Hey CMO, for connecting us. And
I'm really looking forward to
this conversation, because we're
going to talk about something
that, on the surface doesn't
seem like it's extremely
important, but we're going to
start unpacking that, and then
we'll realize like, oh, wow, we
really should be paying
attention to this. Take some
notes, learn and be inspired no?
Yes, true. I'm really excited
about it, and I can see really
quite some founders can benefit
from this knowledge.
Absolutely, absolutely. So if
you don't mind, we'll, we'll
just jump straight in, and I'll
ask you the first question. So
you're, I'm going to say, on a
mission to help B2B Tech scale
ups, grow and increase their
inbound leads. But for this
conversation, I'd like to focus
on this following topic, and
then we can unpack it from
there. So the topic is how B2B
startups can fix their
positioning architecture
problem. Now that sounds like a
really fancy marketing term, but
we're going to unpack it now and
then everybody will realize,
like, how crucial this actually
is. So I'm going to kick off
this conversation with the
following question. So Adrijana,
in our previous conversation,
you mentioned that most B2B
startups think they have a
demand problem, but in reality,
when you dig deeper, what they
actually have is a positioning
and go to market architecture
problem. So can you please
explain that?
Sure. So it's highly depends on
the stage the startup scale up
is it's different challenges.
There are different challenges
at the beginning, when there is
early stage. Startup is about
just doing different tests,
trying the founders, typically
the one that driving the sales
and marketing efforts and
connecting, getting the early
feedback, validating it
afterwards, when it starts to be
already, you gain traction. You
know, you had a successful
especially in deep tech. It's a
lot about the pilot, securing
both successful pilots, moving
from the pilots to for to the
ongoing client relationships.
That's when the it's becomes
much more about challenge of not
only trying, testing different
activities, but really seeing
how what really makes sense,
because there are a lot of
challenges when you have a lot
of activities, but we don't
bring the results, we don't
bring the revenue You want, and
that's especially when I work
with startups. When we have both
conversations, we have the
initial demand, interest,
especially interest. We have
those conversations with
potential clients, however they
don't convert. And that's really
where we are, kind of talking
about the not originally
positioning itself a problem,
but it's also about the go to
market. And one big mistake
clients do is when they focus on
the target ICP (Ideal Customer
Profile), but the target ICP, it
doesn't have a sense of urgency
to buy, so the purchasing intent
is not there. So that's why,
like a lot of times, you have a
lot of internet conversations,
everybody says, so your solution
looks really interesting.
However, that doesn't result in
result in the sales?
Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean,
you brought some really great
points there, and I add two
follow up questions for you. So
I think the first one,
especially when you're talking
about startups, and I can't help
but ask you this question, but
do you sometimes feel when
you're interacting with your
clients, especially when you're
trying to address these problems
with them? Do you sometimes feel
that it's the founder that is
the bottleneck?
It's true as well. Like you
know, as a startup grows as
well, the founder learns a lot,
and it's also, it's a big growth
journey as well, big growth
journey. And as well activities
we do. The mindset also shifts
with every stage. So there are
like, different stages of a
company. When it's founding
team, it's small team. When you
bring the first, highest, first
outsource, outsourcing that
depends already, where you need
to communicate clearly that to
delegate what you want actually
to achieve. So these people know
your vision and goals. That's
really when it starts to be the
first bottleneck of really
making when you are bringing
more people, how the it can they
can work most effectively as
well as a team?
Yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely,
absolutely. So that's, that's
the first question. The second
question is, and I know you and
I both know what positioning is,
but I feel for people outside
the marketing discipline, they
throw that, that statement or
that word around very freely. So
let's just clear the air there a
little bit, and just please
break it down for us. What does
positioning mean, and how is it
relevant to inbound and revenue
and other things like that?
I think it's there are multiple
aspects, but this positioning is
more. What do you want to stand
in there, in in the minds of and
hearts of other people? How do
you want to be for them? Be
remembered so it's not only
remembered so that people can
say and articulate also well,
what you do for yourself, uh,
yourself. And then obviously,
ideally, that also, it's
repeatable, that also the
clients and the rest can say,
and that's not that easy sounds,
but it's not only one statement,
positioning statement, and when
it's all done, positioning is a
lot about work together, the
about the ICP and for the ICP,
so ideal client profile? And
that's a lot about
understanding, especially if it
is multiple industries, multiple
especially on enterprises or
like, there are big buying
cycles, who are the right
people. So it's a buying center.
There are a lot of people who
are users, who are economical
buyers, decision makers. So this
is a lot about work on this ICP
and value propositions for each
of them will be different. So
the positioning work also
includes this value proposition,
especially linking what's the
value, what's the value, what
are the problems they have, and
how you help your solution helps
that to work. So it's like
customer centric communication
about the solution, which is
very hard sometimes for the tech
startups, who are typically over
investing in the technology, and
they talk about the features,
but not so much in the customer
language, about really deeply
understanding customer
understanding who they are and
what they do, what are the
problems and how it solves? And
the big missing piece, and which
is what I have in my
methodology, where I work, and
this is really important,
crucial part not to miss, is the
part of when, not only who, but
then, and that when part is
about urgency, sense of urgency.
Do does the target, ICP, know
that we have this problem? We
are aware about it. Do they
actively seek solutions? And you
are at this stage, at this
stage, so because the right
person, but the wrong moment,
zero outcome. So it's, the sale
will not be done. So it's, this
is especially important. While a
lot of pilot conversations, like
after discovery calls stall is
because of this that they have
this interest. However, the
urgency is not there, and it's a
lot in especially with good AI
solutions, or, like really
talking about long term
innovations, because it requires
a lot of change of the behavior
system processes, how they work
currently, with how we do
business. Currently, be aware.
But this is this problem. But
are we really actively looking
to change solution? And
currently that's very important
part of as well work of his
overall positioning, because
that will mean otherwise, you
just have a lot of
conversations, conversations,
and really very small amount of
them, lead. Leading to the
really close, close deals.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,
absolutely. I like how you said,
like, right person, wrong time,
that almost sounds like dating
situation. It's also
transferable to the world of
like, customers, right? And
that's absolutely true, because
if you identify, if you identify
the right target audience, but
this is not the right time,
right? Because it's a different
because you always have to look
at the different stages of their
journey, right?
Yes.
And unfortunately, in B2B,
whether it's tech or otherwise,
the buyer, the buyer cycles tend
to be a bit longer, right?
Yes.
Absolutely so, based on what you
said, and I know you brought up
already one of them, but like,
based on what you've said in the
past couple of minutes, what are
some of the key pitfalls you
would say B2B marketing teams
need to avoid, and what should
they do instead?
Yes, so for me, really the I see
that founders think about a go
to market as a post, post
activity versus doing it early
on. So meaning they are really
of over focus on technology
alone and thinking when the talk
technology will be, the product
will be launched, that's when
the customers will come. That's
the one that typically,
especially like if the founders
are engineers or coming from the
medical background. This is the
domain. This is where they this
is the comfort zone. So they are
really focusing on the
technology. And that's true,
this is like bigger competitive
advantage, but the commercial
part, getting really early on
understanding who are the
market, what's the feedback,
even integrating that into a
building technology so
important. So that's the common
pitfall about starting it early.
It needs to be still very lean
in beginning, it's more lean.
And one of the key things of
lean activities is about
thinking who are the customers,
exactly who are the right
customers, and then having that
early validation. So it follows
also to the second point. So one
was early. Think about go to
market earlier than when you
typically do. Second is real
versus fake interest. So what I
mean, a lot of founders live in
them more, sometimes in the
bubble of their ecosystem,
meaning like they are get the
early positive feedback from
incubators, accelerators they
are in, as well the different
support groups, plus also our
startup founder saying, Oh, your
solution. Can you give me
feedback on your solution? Yes,
it sounds interesting. Your
technology is really
interesting. Yeah, it should be
interesting, and that's what we
take it as a given feedback.
Okay, I validated. I got this
initial interest. However, this
is not the target audience who
would actually buy so these are
the kind of I call it a fake
validation. It's good to get
also support system. To get
this, because it's really long
journey entrepreneurship and
having building the startup, you
need this support system.
However, you also need to have
reality checks. And the reality
checks are really thinking and
going in the market and having
conversations, if you are having
a solution, let's say in
medtech, selling to the
hospitals, so then going and
actually talking to you. How
does it sound? That feed?
Obviously, it's harder to get
into that contact. There are
some ways where we could do, do
it, but this is really very
critical moment when you get the
actual feedback from the person
who would will in, will be so
valuable in creating your
product. And then also, what are
the different criteria they look
at, what is really the what are
the propositions we are looking
at and how we make the
decisions, and that's very
important as well, to make sure
that you get that early on. So
these are the few pitfalls. I
would say.
These are the few pitfalls, but
they are super important.
Oh yes.
They're so important that I have
to ask you some follow up
questions. Okay, so based on the
first one right when you're
talking about who are the right
customers and getting that early
validation, how, in your
experience, is there a right way
to get early validation?
It's there is not only one way,
there are many, many ways, but
it's just very important. Is
also the mindset of it's active
listening. It's more about you
have your own idea and you're in
love with your product. That's
why you have a startup. It's
also very important to be open
for the feedback, and good and
bad feedback is also very
important. So there are some a
typically like also for the
research, where you don't guide
the questions yes or no. You
want to dig deeper. That's also
very important. It's more, I
think it's the mindset, where
you go you really eager to
learn. You go there to eager to
learn and to really listen and
to understand. That's the
journey, when you want to
understand your potential
client, how you can really make
the life easier. That's the way.
It's a little beyond going
journey where it's really almost
saying that the product market
fit happens also a very similar
in similar time. Then you can
describe and talk the problem of
the customer better than the
customer himself or herself. So
that's the it's a journey so you
will but this is like really
knowing that, that it's
important to hear from them,
versus have only the inside
view, which is and really
seeking those conversations and
have this open mind mindset is
super important.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's
absolutely right. I totally
agree with that. Okay, so that
was the first follow up
question. The second follow up
question, which I think is so
important, based on what you
said, this reality check, right?
Because, you know, we, I have
some experience with this as
well, like, you know, it's
especially talking with a
founder, and they're in their
team, and I always, I always
call it like the internal high
five, right? The internal High
Five means, okay, we built a
great product. Boom, fantastic.
And then, and then internally,
it's like, I believe the market
needs this because of the and I
don't agree that they need this
because of what, whatever the
reason. And everybody internally
agrees. But you and I both know
that, as marketers, it doesn't
help them and it doesn't help us
to just agree with a lot of
these I'm calling them internal
hypotheses. So from your
experience, how do you get these
startups, the founders and their
teams to accept that while you
can have this hypothesis, you
also need to have a proper
reality check to validate
everything that you're saying
internally. Because sometimes as
you, as you well, know not all
founders, but many founders. Is
it the mindset internally is, my
baby is the most beautiful baby
in the world. Don't you dare
insult my baby. All right. So
how do you get them out of this
mindset? How do you get them to
be like, okay, you know, in
order to grow, in order to
scale, you have to be open to
validation for the market. How
do you how do you get them? How
do you get them to that point?
Sure, so I think here it's super
important is to have different
people in your support system,
and very in a closed network,
and part of the founders have
the personal network, especially
when they or we have advisory
boards, part of a board who are
really, typically people come
from the industries differ, or
they have also have done the
startups. Of could be ex
founder, founders who have
successful exits. Or it can be,
especially in some specialized
tech, it can be really coming
advisors from the industry who
really know more more about the
target clients, what's the
problem and how and the typical
challenges the startup can
occur, and that's very important
about utilizing it. So it's also
up to the to the person who is
if it's they have active role as
an advisor or the senior expert,
or only given a fractional,
fractional person who really can
help and structure or some of go
to market is really to have this
open dialog. So it's not about
really just exactly have this
consensus, consensus atmosphere,
that it's okay. What the founder
is saying when we would just
would work on this is it's very
important to challenge that and
to challenge that early on,
because that's when it's really
this diversity of expertise, and
especially this relevant
expertise, is super important to
build around and actually
leverage in the right way,
asking the big questions not
working in the silos. So it's
more about really, that
sometimes with advisory boards,
they are more the name. It's
more for the VC (Venture
Capital), plus also for some of
yes presentations, events, so
for more of trust building.
However, it's really as well.
The how I see the founders who
get much more benefit is really
who use, use the senior experts
in the right way of having
almost milestone checks really
saying this is what we are
working on. Let's look back, and
this is why we didn't gain those
pilots. While we did a lot of
effort, we had a lot of
conversations with those
enterprises, but it doesn't go
anywhere. Let's review that, and
it's more like bringing one
level high of really bad view
and challenge some of the
assumptions which were there
before.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely,
absolutely. And what you said is
also really important, getting
everybody to stop working in
silos and exposing them to the
to the to the bigger ecosystem.
So we were talking about, like,
dealing with pushback, and
unfortunately, I'm going to have
to ask you for more advice on
that, because the next question
is about something that I think
you're very familiar with,
right? Because you're dealing
with a lot of these B2B tech
startups. How do you deal with
pushback from founders? You
know, when you tell them that,
listen, you don't have a demand
problem, you have a positioning
and go to market architecture
problem, and they look at you as
if you're like, What are you
talking about, right? What is
this positioning? What is this
go to market architecture? This
sounds to me like a waste of
time, right? But how do you, how
do you convince them that it's,
it's, in fact, in their interest
to deal with this, and how do
you deal with that pushback?
Yes, it's more it's also depends
on the stage like which, how big
it is, not over engineer some of
activities early on. So it's,
yes, the demand is needed. But
there's also that the big risk
is if we put especially, they
get, sometimes the funding over
and they press P dial on
marketing budget. Advertising, I
have seen that and then, and
they are not very, very clear
who are the right client, and
especially as we talked who then
do they, and especially in a
bigger organizations targeting
so we could really put a lot of
advertising in the right target
audience with a wrong message,
and they could. And no surprise,
the results don't, don't come
afterwards, the deals are not
coming those people, they might
join your mailing list webinar,
and that's so far as we get,
because we, most probably, we
were just interested in what's
new out there. However, they are
not really the right person who
in the organization deciding
this all it is really about your
messaging didn't connect to the
problem, and they wouldn't even
book a call afterwards with the
sales team. So this is the way I
see it's where it's really about
looking overall, about full
funnel, not only about saying,
if we get big volume of people
leads, then everything will be
okay. It's it's much more about
lower volume, but of a right,
right leads that will create
less house, less activity.
Because you can, you can really
mistake a lot of activity will
give a lot of good results. It's
more sometimes really stripping
down, seeing really what's
working. And it requires
somebody who would understand
that really looking at the data,
looking what, what are the
different tests? What resonates?
This is the stage when you
typically did some tests. Early
on, you are still at the stage
of trying and working and
understanding, but at the stage
when you did some now it's a
time to really look at it review
and see where you double down
and what you don't focus on.
It's always, I think it's in
sales and marketing is a lot
about where do you put
priorities? Where do you focus
on and more, I think sometimes
less the activities, but really,
very clearly, can really
simplify also the team effort to
get into those deals, because
sometimes the deals had stalled
in the middle, but you didn't
have time because you were so
busy. But if you would take time
review it, maybe adjust the
positioning, and then revive the
conversation that could lead to
this, to the to big ticket or
deal, and that will will be much
more important, versus doing
extra trials on marketing.
That's exactly it. And you, I
think you hit on something that
is worth repeating. It's also a
lot about the strategy, right?
Like a lot of a lot of startups
that I've seen, they jump
straight into the execution,
right? Like you talked about it,
like ads and then and lead
generation. And I'm not saying
that those things are not
important. They are, but if you
don't have that understanding.
Who the target audience is, and
you don't have a strategy in
terms of, like, how you're going
to approach the market, you're
just going to be burning through
money. And you and I both know
how much ads cost, and if you
don't know what you're doing,
it's like a vacuum cleaner now.
But you touched on something
that I think it's worth
revisiting and going back to,
because it's again. I know it
might sound a bit repetitive,
but why is it so important for
them to understand, or have a
deep understanding about who
this potential customer is?
Right? Why is it important for
them to know that, and why is it
important for them to understand
the buyer's journey? Because,
you know, depending on what
stage of the journey these
people are in, they may have
different motivations, or they
may have different reasons for
looking for a product or
solution.
I think it's, it's really
important. That will make or
break your traction and more,
and that's really the part of
understanding and speaking in
about the customer, sometimes
even better than the customer
themselves. Makes the customer
really feel you understand you
are credible, you build... I can
trust you. And that's really it
says speed dial. It's a speed
dial to really, to retraction,
to really, this is what is
important part is to especially
in B2B, you, it's building
credibility and trust so that
you really know, yes, you have a
great credentials in terms of a
technology that your solution.
That's important part. However,
the equally is also important,
the the understanding
commercially how this technology
can help your customers. It's
really about your customers,
especially when we talk about
you, mentioned about buying
centers and complex
organizations. That's when it's
really thereby. It's a lot about
reducing risks. It's a lot about
minimizing transition costs. So
it's more about that you are not
really too risky for them to to
buy from. And this is it goes
beyond the technology. It's a
lot about understanding and
talking in the language of a
customer that you have
discovered very clearly, very
proactively, in first, in your
mind, when afterwards, all your
communication. And this is where
it comes the strategy is super
important. But I see it's it's
not a strategy where you need
just a document, somebody
quickly did it, or like now,
it's the AI or somebody out of
touch. It requires, as well,
real validation. So that's where
it's important. The strategy
with validation, which is not on
paper document, it's really
about kind of almost agreement
of what's the core, or what's
the core, what we are doing,
trying to achieve, and how the
way we trying to achieve that.
So this helps you, is for the
founder, for the rest of the
team, and then we are talking
about gaining traction, bring
the rest of together. The
strategy changes over time. Some
elements the market also
adjusts. Technologies adjust,
but this is super important part
of stop wasting time on of doing
too many activities and really
looking at what, what really
will move a needle.
Wait a second, you mean that the
strategy has to be adjusted. I
thought the strategy is just
something you do one time and
then you forget about it.
I think it's that's why, that's
what this gets a lot of times. I
think it's as well in a tech
companies, they do especially
early stages that pitch
documents thinking overall,
that's the part of saying what's
addressable market. So say we
did, we have our covered. I have
our go to market. We have our
plan. That's it's great. It
gives us some of her some it's
already good starting points,
but there is much more on that.
It's really ongoingly effort,
and that's why it's why there
are really the teams who
succeed. Is really the founder,
is leading the sales and
marketing organization. And then
they are, they are close to the
customer. So it's not only to
the product, but we need to be
close to the customer. And then
they are like, really bridge,
bridging the gaps as well as we
go, because it's also the
different challenges. But being
close to the customer and
hearing that and not working in
a silo and bringing back that
knowledge is super important.
And so it's that document
changes a lot of times. It's,
it's, can be, it's not 180
story. It's. Sometimes it will
be big pivots. There are pivots
as well. You scrap your current
product, and you see that some
of the one leg can really move
forward, like there are examples
like Spotify, and I was wherever
I started and they landed. But
this is moving. It's a moving
piece, not one set in stone
piece.
Right. So I think for this next
question, if you really want to
get very deep, it will take us
several hours to talk about it,
but just in the interest of
time, maybe you can just give us
a top level perspective, right?
Just based on your own
experience, walk us through how
the B2B startups should fix
their positioning, go to market
architecture problems. So just
give us the key steps. What are
the key components that need to
be in that process?
I think it's in beginning,
especially it's important of
looking at and picking one
target customer. So one
industry, one target customer,
thinking about your resources.
It's a lot about your resources,
especially a lot of technologies
are agnostic. So that's the
typical pitfall of saying it's
for everyone, but it's almost
for nobody, really. So it's
about picking one of the
customer target, and that's
typically comes either which one
you are familiar with, where you
come, come from, or you have
great access to as well. So it's
really there. You can see it's
it helps you to validate early,
to get access to real people,
talk to them, to see, to see, to
get that feedback, fine tune and
not over developer MVP (Minimum
Viable Product). MVP like the
first products a lot of times as
well, because that's really what
we talked that it comes together
together, that MVP, it will be
most of the times. You will
scratch it. You will build a
next level moving forward. But
this will help you to launch,
launch, and iterate faster and
not always spend time. There is
a difference in deep tech. It
takes time, sometimes 10 years,
10 years based on the research.
So there are nuances as well. So
it's not there as well, but this
is very important part of
narrowing the focus in beginning
will help you to grow, to go
faster, to go faster and to
really get the right right
customers. And this, it's very
important for the to validate
that with few customers, not
only one, to really see if it is
a scalable solution. So hence,
we talking about the depth and
breadth of a customer early on.
So here we are talking about
because sometimes here the risk
is of choosing one customer.
It's almost fully designing it
for that customer, to the point
that is almost only relevant to
that customer based on their
requirements. So it's seeing how
you could leverage that pilot
that you can really also offer
to others afterwards, how? So
it's really things are thinking
about the pilot in the right
way, and here it's so it's more
about who would be the few
clients and how deep you can go.
So for the pilots it can help
you land in those companies. But
afterwards, how you can move
from the pilots to the full full
projects, which we pay the
bigger, bigger school projects.
So this is the important I
think, in a short period of
time, I think that's the
important part of thinking about
how you could get this early
traction, and the early traction
which is scalable. So these are
fundamentals of thinking of
okay, when you have this in the
right way, then you see this
breadth and depth of the
customers, which you prove the
point with, multiple of the
customers. Then we got the
feedback from the right
customers. Helps you to grow
faster. Moving on.
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I
love how you also led with,
like, narrowing the focus. And I
think that's so important. A lot
of these, a lot of startups like
you said, like, Okay, this is,
this is for, you know, different
different verticals, or the, you
know, we have customers in
different industries, but in the
beginning, if you, if you have
that mindset, and you approach
the market that way, and I think
you brought it up earlier on in
the conversation, you start to
spread yourself so thin. And a
lot of these startups don't have
500 employees, right? So, you
know, it's a handful of people,
if they're, if there's 10 people
in the startup, that's already
like, wow, I. Right? But
there's, there's only a few
people, and especially there's
only a few people responsible
for business, right, and client
acquisition. So if you start
already in the beginning,
spreading them so thin, how are
you ever going to scale, right?
Yeah, okay, fantastic. But okay,
so maybe this is a question that
you probably know the answer to.
But I think it's really
important to put it into
context, because when you say,
narrow the focus, how do you get
startups to narrow the focus,
especially when they say, well,
we built this tool, and it's for
different industries. How do you
get them and especially because
there's a lot of people on
LinkedIn saying, oh, narrowing
the focus. That's, that's lazy
advice. I disagree with that, by
the way, but, um, but how do you
get them to narrow the focus?
How do you get them to just zero
in on one particular vertical.
So here, I can give a few
examples. I think it is here.
It's really depends on, on, also
the industry. How narrow is the
narrow?
Absolutely.
So typically, my advice would
be, you think that you are
narrow, go even further.
Okay.
Go fever further, because it's
not only the big industries, but
who are within the industries.
And specifically, if you are
saying, let's say it's
technology solution. Technology
solution of improving the
productivity. And you care for
enterprises. That's typically a
lot of enterprises, but if you
choose one specific industry,
saying these are the typically
processes they have to improve,
okay? But then there are a lot
of teams, and within the teams,
there are also the hierarchy, so
understanding really more
specific use cases. So that's
the typical way of thinking
about where are the few use
cases where you could really
solve really well, and sometimes
they come as exactly because you
had the access to the market you
can really have it's easier for
you. It's more accessible,
accessible one. But it's also
looking if it is, can be
repeatable, repeatable, that
there are various potential as
well, moving forward, moving
forward, forward. So there it's,
it's, I think people are very
scared, and other founders I
work with of being too narrow,
too narrow, but exactly as we
talk about, it's very small
team. It's better to have 10
earlier, like pilots, but it's
really been closed and you have
strong learnings versus 100 of
nice to have conversations and
maybe few, but never really even
have use cases closed in the
multiple, multiple areas. This
is where, like it happens that
that going narrow. It really
helps. And in in some very niche
already, solutions like
robotics, for the specific area,
it takes really time as well to
solve any problem, learn really
depth about the customer. So you
cannot spread yourself too thin
on many, customers there. So the
time in deep tech it takes to
solve the problem, this is the
especially I recommend in deep
tech, very specific area to get
the traction it's really
important to get it's a narrow
one, because this is where you
invested a lot in the research a
young competitive also
differentiation on what's the
technology so it's better
solving really, truly well for
amount of customers, and that's
really the build up, versus of
going broad and losing this even
the trust and credibility in the
market.
Absolutely, absolutely. You
know, as you were explaining
this, which I think you
explained really well, it almost
sounds like you have to get them
to conduct an experiment. You
remember, back in the school
days, we were conducting
experiments, and then we have to
record the results, right? And
then, okay, what worked, what
didn't work? Okay, what worked,
scale, what didn't work, stop,
right? Or, or pivot, yeah,
change the approach, right? We
have to find out why didn't it
work? Right? What were the
reasons? What was the feedback?
Right? So it's almost like, it's
almost like you have to have
this experimental slash growth
mindset.
Yes, yes. That's very important.
I think it's this growth
mindset. It's really there you
are. It's continuous iteration
and learning. It's learning as
well. It's also about asking the
questions, being in the asking
the questions, having a not this
paralysis of no action. So you
need to have the action for your
actions, but the also thinking
about, what is it behind? What
would really we need to do to
make this pilot successful?
What, and also, when you are
talking with a customer early
on, on the pilot, super
important is to ask, what needs
to happen in this pilot. What
are the success criteria for us
to move from the pilot to the
full project afterwards. So
that's the one like it helps
tech as well to structure this
experiments in the right way, in
the right way, versus just when
you are spreading to fin, you
almost show the demo. Demos,
give the solution, and then
leaving the customer almost
alone. So you didn't give full,
full effort in those pilots as
well to get the right even the
data behind.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Adrijana, this was such a great
conversation, and you know,
thank you so much for coming on
and sharing your expertise and
experience with the listeners.
So please give us a quick
introduction and how people out
there can get in touch with you,
especially if they're in the B2B
Tech or health startup space in
Switzerland and Europe.
Yes, sure. So I am go to market
advisor and fractional CMO, or
Chief Revenue Officer for B2B
tech companies. I'm based in
Switzerland. I operate with many
European and also US companies
who typically are still at the
stage of founder led sales and
marketing activities. And I
support them, moving from heavy
activity random sales to
repeatable way of winning deals.
And my company is called go to
market advantage. So go to
gtmadvantage.ch you can find
also resources there as quick
diagnostic tool as well. So it's
a three five minutes tool for
them as well to get some of the
low hanging fruits, what
typically go to market
challenges they have, and it
gives them as well, some advice.
And I'm happy to also, yes,
share more of the discovery
calls.
Fantastic, fantastic, and we'll
be sure to put a link in the
show notes when this episode
comes out. So once again.
Adrijana, thanks so much for
your time. Take care, stay safe
and talk to you soon.
Thank you.