Today we’re talking about how startups find their first b2b customer. Here’s a quick overview of the most common channels.
The absolute best channel, by a mile, is getting warm introductions or asking people already in your network. Using existing trust is a great way to get a meeting with a potential customer.
If you’ve exhausted your networks, then some other good channels to try are: doing cold outreach where you ask the recipient for advice, this is one of my favorites. Conferences are also a great place to meet customers but obviously it’s tougher to find these during the pandemic. And offering small consulting services to potential customers also works to build trust before a longer term contract.
Channels that don’t work so well are: Content marketing — only because it takes time to get this going and you may want to get your first customer ASAP, Cold emails — these are low efficiency and you can burn through a lot of leads while violating numerous spam policies. And then Ads — usings ads can drastically reduce your runway, very quickly, and in my experience the potential customers you find through ads are often less willing to pay.
