Dan Martell - How To Find Early Adopters For Your B2B SaaS

00:00:00.080 what would tell you looking from outside maybe through a website maybe looking at a building

00:00:06.480 maybe where they're located that would tell you that they would care about carbon offsets

00:00:11.760 their CSR strategies and their CSR projects. Yeah. All right. You're a smart cat.

00:00:30.860 Luca, how's it going, man? All good. All good. Great. Very cool. Last time. Yeah. All right.

00:00:38.740 well let's let's talk business tell me about your business and we'll get in some questions

00:00:43.380 let's sure so uh for short our business is called cruise and we connect employees

00:00:49.940 from the same company to go home or to work together uber but like for employees inside the

00:00:57.060 company right so it's carpooling for employees yeah that's right we sell it uh to the company

00:01:05.460 uh the ride is free for the user only the company pays and the main differentiators

00:01:11.300 are that we track the carbon footprint that you reduce and we're also tracking um and offering

00:01:19.060 benefits to the to the drivers and to the passengers so it's like a uh gamified system

00:01:25.540 for them all right did you know that uh lyft started off as this before they became lyft

00:01:32.420 i heard about it yeah yeah yeah yeah that's cool um i got the the premise where are you at what

00:01:38.980 stage are you at so right now we're in development um our business is is like we're starting to put

00:01:45.860 together uh the ui ux uh we're starting these to integrate our interviews our qualitative

00:01:52.660 our quantitative we started putting them together uh and right now we've just received an investment

00:01:58.660 from shark tank romania and we're using that to finish up development uh there's a shark tank

00:02:05.300 in romania yeah it's actually it's called lion's empire oh okay but it's not the shark tank

00:02:12.420 producers it's a separate producer it's it's the show licensed here in romania okay because we have

00:02:18.500 dragon's den in canada same concept yeah same concept cool so you went on the show and you got

00:02:24.500 investment yes yeah awesome so how can i help so right now uh we have we have like three main uh

00:02:34.020 things that we're struggling with um is first signing clients before we launch so for us it's

00:02:40.820 very important to uh to have somebody on board because it's easier to convince others we can go

00:02:45.700 hey look this corporate entity this company signed up for us why don't you as well and

00:02:51.300 that moves it out uh in the in the sales process but it's hard for us to convince before we even

00:02:59.380 have a demo or a product to okay that footing so it sounds like your challenge is trying to get

00:03:07.860 a company to take a bet on you when you don't have the demo bill yet yes so here's here's a

00:03:14.500 important concept that i think um you know it's been written about a lot but it's the idea of the

00:03:19.940 the technology adoption curve right so jeffrey moore um wrote a book and he drew this curve and

00:03:28.020 essentially in it there's five stages of technology adoption and i think it's like um majority yeah

00:03:37.540 the innovators uh early adopters then there's there's even one before i think but there's i

00:03:43.940 i think there's five uh and then there's like the laggards right so the way i think about it is if

00:03:51.380 you have a product that has demand right like there's some kind of thing but but most things

00:03:56.100 that are crazy like you know like super specific innovation should have a market right but even in

00:04:03.460 that market that total addressable market there's essentially these early adopters yeah so then the

00:04:09.860 question is in romania i'm assuming is it romania you're trying to get some companies on board yeah

00:04:15.780 in romania and then there's also for you kind of a a company size that needs to be big enough for

00:04:22.660 it to really work so what's the minimum amount of employees you think it requires 600. okay so in

00:04:28.660 romania you need to find companies that have 600 employees or more um that care about the things

00:04:36.900 that you saw because it sounds like the employees get to use it for free which is fine they would

00:04:42.100 use it for free but the company is going to pay so they need to want it and they need to care

00:04:47.940 about the things they built in it which is the carbon offset so then the question to you is

00:04:53.940 and everybody listening is what would tell you looking from outside maybe through a website

00:05:01.300 maybe looking at a building maybe where they're located that would tell you that they would care

00:05:06.340 about carbon offsets their csr uh strategies and their csr projects yeah all right you're a smart

00:05:13.860 cat because i i've actually had this conversation quite a bit with entrepreneurs um so if i go to

00:05:18.980 their website and if i find that they have a csr component then that tells me they're at least

00:05:23.620 in market now does having a csr component tell me they're an early adopter no not even perfect

00:05:30.660 so at least tells me they're qualified for what i'm doing or they're at least a target

00:05:35.300 Then I need to find out what makes them an early adopter.

00:05:38.100 So my question to you is what is true about a 600 person company

00:05:42.740 that would tell you they're also early adopters of technology?

00:05:47.060 I think at least for us, we don't try to perceive it as a

00:05:54.380 as a technology bit, you know, as they are early adopters of technology

00:05:58.100 as much as there are early adopters of a subscription.

00:06:00.580 So we have this thing here in Romania, which is called seven card subscription to gyms.

00:06:05.300 right but to all gyms in different of what kind of a chain that part they're a part of so that

00:06:10.980 became sort of like you know it is not adoption of technology but adoption of this trend of

00:06:16.100 oh you got a seven card i got a seven card too that's cool and but who's buying the seven card

00:06:21.380 the consumer uh no the company okay the company buys seven cards for their teams right employee

00:06:27.940 Exactly, yeah.

00:06:28.780 Okay, now, yeah, please.

00:06:32.320 I mean, I get that that's important, and that's not bad,

00:06:36.800 but if I was also trying to find that

00:06:39.580 plus technology adoption.

00:06:42.620 Right, I would probably look at smaller, right?

00:06:49.500 So I wouldn't look at corporate, I wouldn't look at,

00:06:52.180 you know, high-

00:06:52.840 No, take at 600.

00:06:54.080 uh probably uh fast moving consumer goods i would look in that direction you're looking at

00:07:02.400 industries i'm i'm asking you what is true about something in the company that tells you they're an

00:07:08.720 early adopter also for example for example if i was trying to figure this out for a consumer

00:07:17.360 i would ask them do you have tick tock account oh right right right right okay now i get it now i

00:07:24.720 get it yes yeah so then i would look to see if they already have a seven card first things first

00:07:31.120 because also seven card is in the same stage as us uh then i would look at um recruitment platforms

00:07:39.120 how do they recruit do they recruit through new uh platforming there are a couple of new

00:07:45.760 platforms here in romania that just started popping out like job full that do um gamified

00:07:52.560 recruiting so i look oh look are they using this are they using this gamified recruiting that's

00:07:57.760 different yeah they're in the target so that that's like that to me is is the answer to how

00:08:05.840 to find these people sevens card the recruiting platform one i like to use is google apps for

00:08:11.600 domains or google apps nice yeah so i do a reverse look up on the dns right because i can look i can

00:08:18.240 grab their either domain i can see if they have a mail record pointing to google's mail server

00:08:22.880 i'll look at um some of the technology on the marketing website right where i might see if

00:08:28.960 they're using clearbit data um seeing if they're using hubspot so like i'm looking for the fact

00:08:35.200 that they are not laggards they're early adopters actively looking yeah they're looking for an edge

00:08:42.240 yeah right because if they're willing to deploy these technologies then my technology seems like

00:08:48.880 a no-brainer right so you already got the csr that kind of validates the behavior or at least makes

00:08:54.640 it open to it you have the seven card which shows you that they care about employees perks so

00:08:59.360 literally if you could get a customer list of everybody at sevens card that would be a good

00:09:03.520 place to start and then reverse engineer from their customer base who are the people and then

00:09:07.760 see if they use these recruiting platforms yeah uh we are we actually can that's a good idea

00:09:13.680 that's a good idea yeah thanks that's the way i do it uh one more question and i'll promise i'll

00:09:19.600 leave you after this thank you um is regarding revenue model so we had a competitor on the

00:09:25.680 market that tried to merge with us but we rejected them in terms of you know it wasn't a good fit in

00:09:31.040 terms of founder uh founder team uh they were called team way uh and they had a couple of

00:09:37.280 companies already signed up uh larger let's say you know automotive manufacturing or whatever

00:09:45.760 but they had a different revenue model so they charged per ride so every ride would cost but it

00:09:52.240 wouldn't cost the employee again for the employee it was completely free it would cost for the

00:09:56.640 company two euros per ride uh and then a monthly fixed subscription of like 400 600 euros so we're

00:10:07.600 trying to to find our own revenue model that would work right now we're working with a per active

00:10:14.240 user so if we have a per active user is four euros per month per active user and a fixed monthly

00:10:21.760 subscription for like maintenance and servers or whatever um i'll tell you yeah i'll tell you a few

00:10:30.080 things the issue with the proactive users is it makes it hard for the company to estimate cost

00:10:36.960 right so the fixed monthly fee 100 and then what you call the value metric like what is the

00:10:44.480 um activity that lets me know that the business is getting value and that i'm getting value

00:10:50.640 i wouldn't do i mean again there's two things at your stage optimizing for pricing is actually not

00:10:56.640 what you need to be doing right you need to you need to optimize for usage you need distribution

00:11:03.040 okay the good news about software is you can change your pricing at any point and and most

00:11:08.320 of my clients that i coach they're changing their stock their pricing every six months

00:11:13.040 nice okay so so know that it's not about getting it right today it's about getting the data to be

00:11:20.160 able to look at the data to then figure out the pricing because like when i'm doing pricing uh

00:11:25.520 coaching i'm looking at the the the analysis of how people are currently using the products what

00:11:31.280 are the what is a histogram analysis of usage features by cohort to see oh these are the natural

00:11:39.280 break points of activities that make these plans or packages make sense right and anytime you you

00:11:47.200 peg a price to especially to an enterprise they just don't like surprises so if they don't have

00:11:55.040 any sense of if you don't say it's two dollars per registered users and you're going to deploy

00:12:00.160 this to 100 people and i can i know that um then it makes it tough for them to agree because

00:12:06.400 they're like well i don't know if it's 200 or 220 right right so i i would just say try to figure

00:12:13.120 out what an enterprise license could look like for now get 10 customers you know make sure you

00:12:19.360 price it so that you're not losing money and then um and then you use those 10 customers to to really

00:12:26.320 build the case study to then go sell and as you go get the next set of 10 customers then you'll

00:12:31.760 have enough data to be able to start looking at some of these things but if you didn't want to do

00:12:37.440 a per seat type pricing um active customers i think would create a lot of friction in the

00:12:44.640 buying process whereas i would rather do it per so like i know how many team members i have i'm

00:12:51.120 gonna invite them all to be on the platform and if i have more team members it costs me a few bucks

00:12:55.520 more right so instead of four bucks per active charge two dollars per employee right so you got

00:13:02.880 a value metric which means that the more employees their scale that the base fee but you're not

00:13:09.360 making them try to guess what the active is going to be does that help okay yeah yeah it helps a

00:13:16.640 bit but just the fact that we have to you know first collect some data that's that's for 100

00:13:22.640 pricing is an analysis game it's saying i thought these things would be valued to a customer it

00:13:28.080 turns out that this is because you might find out that maybe the most valuable thing to the

00:13:32.400 the employee is this chat thing that you've got built in the product right that people just love

00:13:37.200 right yeah so then you might say well it's the pricing the packages are this for the base plus

00:13:42.480 you get so many chat volume but if you go over a certain amount of chat volume just like slack

00:13:46.480 now you have to get pushed up to the next package right and then the per user fee seat is x right

00:13:54.400 instead of y so like to me it's really about can i get enough customers use the product get them

00:13:59.040 I'm using it then I can analyze it and figure out how I'm going to redesign the pricing and know

00:14:03.580 that was the most used yeah yeah just like your product changes your pricing should change every

00:14:08.300 six months you should be doing add-ons changing limits changing pricing yeah right right fair

00:14:15.740 enough thank you I'm just curious if you had one more question what would it be uh it would actually

00:14:22.100 be regarding um regarding scaling so how do you how do you push through right we're in romania

00:14:31.780 in this small tiny european country we've got a market of like two million people uh uh total

00:14:38.580 tam a total addressable market right we're probably gonna grab 200 000 in the best case scenario

00:14:44.660 right uh question is how do we break through into into the other countries especially taking into

00:14:51.140 account the high competition of uber uber pool uh bolt bolt pool or whatever comes comes after

00:15:00.180 so yeah so when it comes to international scaling i i personally obviously i'm canadian i do a lot

00:15:07.300 of stuff in the us it's kind of easy right i normalize my pricing in usd the canadians buying

00:15:12.500 usd um and even international it's always done in usd when i when i've worked with clients in in

00:15:19.540 europe or asia etc the question is first is do we use our local market to r d this and then make a

00:15:28.740 decision to go to the us okay so that's one decision so and some do some say look we've got

00:15:36.260 enough traction here it's great but you know what we're gonna join yc or we're gonna go do this

00:15:41.460 thing and we're gonna bring it to the us because the amount of effort to do that outweighs us

00:15:46.340 trying to dominate this region because it's a lot of different piece of currency as you know like

00:15:50.260 it's just so many intricacies versus okay we're going to make it in europe and really grow that

00:15:55.940 way and if you're doing it that way then what i've seen clients do especially if they're in like

00:16:01.620 germany or other parts of the uk um is they'll just they'll they'll they'll choose the natural

00:16:10.500 markets where they can get leverage right so the language the currency so you just got to be

00:16:16.260 strategic of like how you roll it out right but for the most part it's going to be country by country

00:16:22.900 so i don't know romania specifically but i think of it like bowling pins right is there and then

00:16:30.500 close cousins so there's the first pin which is romania what is the close cousin to romania what

00:16:35.140 are the two other countries that use the same currency or speak the same language or most

00:16:38.660 likely that are big what are they or have the most romanians because we're the second country in

00:16:44.340 immigration right perfect maybe yeah netherlands italy okay so then then you gotta you gotta

00:16:53.140 decide if i go to the netherlands right is that french the language uh dutch dutch um yeah yeah

00:17:02.660 so it's kind of like you want to figure out what's the least amount of moving parts because if i'm

00:17:07.380 going to go and create another language to go to a market then i could easily go to germany

00:17:14.580 which is larger yeah exactly and then and then from there i get more resources to then

00:17:20.740 build the rest and maybe i go romania germany uk kind of like a game of risk right it's always it's

00:17:28.980 always the strategy of saying what's the least amount of moving parts the minimum effective dose

00:17:34.580 for me to go to market to get distribution and if i'm going to add another currency or i'm going

00:17:40.020 to add another language anyway let's not do it with a small market when it's the same amount

00:17:45.300 of effort to do it with a big market right right right right but i can't be too far away

00:17:51.780 that maybe time zone or geography is going to cause issues from a support point of view

00:17:56.260 so there's kind of those constraints that i'm going to take into consideration

00:17:59.140 okay right so it's kind of like this sweet spot of like this is the one that looks the most like

00:18:05.120 us it's close to us they have a lot of romanian people there but it's a new language it's a big

00:18:10.900 enough market we can grow into so we can grab the romanian companies maybe initially then we'll

00:18:15.380 localize it language currency we'll be able to grab the full country and then that's going to

00:18:20.140 build the base for us to go to the next big one and once we get that third one then we can fill

00:18:25.340 in the rest of it because we'll have a bigger team and more resources most people don't realizing

00:18:29.840 that success is a sequencing problem so success equals sequencing right i need to strategically

00:18:40.040 look at the list of activities in the sequence i'm going to do them in that's going to give me

00:18:44.340 the most leverage that's why for a lot of companies from a growth point of view it's easier to double

00:18:50.060 down on something that's working today than to start something new that's unknown then because

00:18:56.860 i don't know if it's going to produce but this thing's working i know if i do more of it it's

00:19:00.860 going to work more so for now i'm going to do more of the thing that's working that's going to unlock

00:19:05.340 more profit which is allow me to invest in the team so i'll have a bigger team so when i go do

00:19:09.740 that other thing i'll be in a better spot than doing two things at the same time but not having

00:19:14.300 a big enough team to actually do either one really good right right fair enough yeah most companies

00:19:20.860 die most businesses startups they die from indigestion doing too many things at once

00:19:26.460 then starvation they think it's a lack of opportunity i'm telling you it's doing it's

00:19:33.020 not saying no enough yeah right because it's only in the know that it provides focus

00:19:39.020 so if you're not saying no just be aware that you may lack focus

00:19:46.260 because the best people in the world think about the best entrepreneurs in the world

00:19:52.700 you ask them for something they'll give you a yes or no right away why because they know

00:19:57.980 where they're going and if your thing aligns with where they're going great if it doesn't

00:20:03.180 no and startups don't typically approach it that way because they don't have enough

00:20:08.780 of a strategy a sequence a vision of where they want to go so just it's kind of a feedback loop

00:20:13.820 for you based on our conversation luca what what did you take away what are the big takeaways for

00:20:21.020 you so big big takeaways regarding the data that we have to analyze data of users before we even

00:20:29.340 start pricing it properly uh then second is about how to get paid do you get paid yeah yeah no we

00:20:36.620 get paid for sure that's not yeah uh then second how to target these early adopters innovators

00:20:44.460 company uh that we can have join our ranks as soon as possible and and start working with those and

00:20:51.340 how to identify the details that lead me to that and last but not least about focus about focus

00:20:59.180 because I get it, like smart rides is one of the ideas

00:21:02.580 from our startup studio, you know?

00:21:05.280 So I 100% get that.

00:21:08.560 Awesome.

00:21:09.400 And I felt it, yeah.

00:21:10.700 It's a lot of fun.

00:21:11.540 Great conversation to create the time

00:21:13.220 and I look forward to staying connected.

00:21:16.300 For sure.

00:21:17.140 Thank you, thank you again.

00:21:17.980 Great conversation.

00:21:18.980 See you.

00:21:19.820 Cheers.

Dan Martell - October 11, 2021

How To Find Early Adopters For Your B2B SaaS

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