How do you guys actually break into B2B when starting from zero?

elitebill

elitebill

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Im not sure if this is the right section to post this as i cant see and dedicated B2B discussion section on BHW. If this is on the wrong section Mods please feel free to move it , im not trying to break any rules.

So ive been trying to figure this out and honestly getting a bit stuck. I built a small tool based on a problem I kept running into while hiring. I was getting flooded with applications, but most of them were low effort or clearly AI-generated. At one point I had 300+ applicants and spent more time filtering than actually hiring.

What I did was I built something simple for myself to handle that, and it worked pretty well and decided to turn it into something others can use as well like a full on B2B SaaS. To be clear its not some vibecoded BS that we are seeing all over the place, this took me more than 18 months to build with a developer.

Now the problem is getting it in front of the right people. I made the classic mistake of build first, market later which i have learned the hard way that you should get a market first, then build. Not the other way. I’ve tried content marketing, cold emails, sending personalized looms , reaching out to people actively hiring, offering to set up the entire process { more like DFY instead of a self serve SaaS but nothing has worked.

What I’m starting to realize is it might just be a trust issue. People would rather pay for something outdated with reviews than try something new, even if it actually solves the problem better.

So now I’m a bit stuck between:
just pushing harder on my own, or maybe going the partnership/JV route with someone who already has distribution or has network example on linked in, similar to how GringoMonkey was doing here https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/jv-your-b2b-product-service-my-linkedin-outreach.1401916/page-4

So just curious , if you were on my shoes what approach would you take ? im not the best on camera so doing YT to promote this wont really work for me.
Has anyone dealt with this before?
 
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Door to door physical meeting business managers and owners, business card spreading, flyers at special events, roadside signage. Offline marketing is what this project needs to get some money rolling in initially, while the online marketing gains traction over time, this is my opinion. Good luck with sales, wishing you the best on this journey!
 
It's a bit annoying that you can't advertise your own service/product on this forum, or if you want to advertise, you have to pay for it.
Or you can't even cant say anything about it.

Just because many people would be interested in knowing what this tool you've made is.
And people could give a more detailed description of the topic. But right now, you get basic responses.

But yeah, it may be that you need to partner with someone for these settings. Because this kind of tool needs visibility and especially in today's world, visual video + image material.
Have you tried the Pomelli program?
Put the product in there, you get a 7-second video, you make similar 16-second brand videos for YouTube shorts and you try to define your target audience for that.
You do the same thing for TikTok and Instagram.

You can do with Pomelli about 3 videos a day. So if you do it every day of the week. It´s 21 videos.
Edit them with Camtasia and get background music from Pixabay, and make a male or female voice with https://luvvoice.com/

Upload the videos to YouTube and make it that every week you upload 2-3 shorts from that topic.
While they are automatically uploaded there in a few weeks, you can continue branding.

Maybe the price is too high for people, but it's hard to say. These things are a kind of symbiote, that if someone doesn't play, the whole system will crash.
But you don't always know where the problem lies. That's why you need an outside eye to look at the situation.

There was one dude in this forum, who had very good software perspective and knowledge, but I don't remember the name.
I would recommend this dude to watch your product.
 
those 300+ applications problem is actually your sales pitch right there, that number is specific enough to stop a hiring manager mid-scroll. the caveat though is that b2b cold outreach with a pain-point tool only works if youre targeting people who've already complained about it publicly, i ran linkedin sales navigator for 3 months targeting ops directors who posted about hiring volume and got a 14% reply rate just by referencing their own words back at them. if you go broad and pitch anyone with a job req open you'll get ignored, the specificity of who you reach out to matters more than the tool itself
 
Jason Starkey said:
Door to door physical meeting business managers and owners, business card spreading, flyers at special events, roadside signage. Offline marketing is what this project needs to get some money rolling in initially, while the online marketing gains traction over time, this is my opinion. Good luck with sales, wishing you the best on this journey!
Click to expand...
I actually agree with you on this and I feel like a lot of competitors probably got their initial traction exactly that way, just being physically present and building trust offline.

The challenge on my end is I’m not based in the US/Canada/Europe, so doing door-to-door or even local networking in those markets isn’t really possible for me right now.

I even thought about approaching local job boards and pitching it almost like an ATS add-on, but most of them already have their own ATS systems they’re pushing to their clients, so it’s been a bit tough there too.Even with things like cold calling, I’ve been hesitant because calling into those markets from abroad can easily come off as spam. Curious though , if you were in my position (selling into those markets remotely), how would you adapt that offline-first approach?
 
Lifeisnotgood said:
It's a bit annoying that you can't advertise your own service/product on this forum, or if you want to advertise, you have to pay for it.
Or you can't even cant say anything about it.

Just because many people would be interested in knowing what this tool you've made is.
And people could give a more detailed description of the topic. But right now, you get basic responses.

But yeah, it may be that you need to partner with someone for these settings. Because this kind of tool needs visibility and especially in today's world, visual video + image material.
Have you tried the Pomelli program?
Put the product in there, you get a 7-second video, you make similar 16-second brand videos for YouTube shorts and you try to define your target audience for that.
You do the same thing for TikTok and Instagram.

You can do with Pomelli about 3 videos a day. So if you do it every day of the week. It´s 21 videos.
Edit them with Camtasia and get background music from Pixabay, and make a male or female voice with https://luvvoice.com/

Upload the videos to YouTube and make it that every week you upload 2-3 shorts from that topic.
While they are automatically uploaded there in a few weeks, you can continue branding.

Maybe the price is too high for people, but it's hard to say. These things are a kind of symbiote, that if someone doesn't play, the whole system will crash.
But you don't always know where the problem lies. That's why you need an outside eye to look at the situation.

There was one dude in this forum, who had very good software perspective and knowledge, but I don't remember the name.
I would recommend this dude to watch your product.
Click to expand...
I actually don’t mind paying for ads but I feel like I need a bit more product-market fit first.I’ve tried Reddit ads before, and the issue I ran into was people landing on the site, seeing a new product with no real reviews or social proof, and then bouncing. Conversion was pretty tough at that stage and I do agree with you though , partnering with someone who already has distribution or audience might be the smarter move here.

I hadn’t heard of Pomeli before, but I just checked it out and I’ll definitely give it a try. Content-wise I’ve actually pushed quite a bit already (around 100 videos across long-form + shorts), so I can probably double down on that with better positioning. Now, regarding pricing , interestingly that hasn’t really been the issue. From what I’m seeing, B2B buyers don’t care as much about price as they do about trust and integration. Even if they like the product, they still have to justify it internally or switch from something they’re already using, which adds friction unlike B2C where someone can just buy in a whim.

So yeah, I think you’re right this might be one of those cases where an outside perspective or the right partner makes a big difference.

And if you happen to remember that guy you mentioned, I’d really appreciate it if you could share his name.
 
the jv route with someone who has linkedin distribution is probably your fastest path tbh. you have the product they have the audience. find someone in the hr/recruiting space with 10k+ linkedin followers and pitch a rev share deal
 
princesinhada1D said:
the jv route with someone who has linkedin distribution is probably your fastest path tbh. you have the product they have the audience. find someone in the hr/recruiting space with 10k+ linkedin followers and pitch a rev share deal
Click to expand...
Yeah I agree and this approach makes a lot of sense, especially for solving the trust + distribution problem at the same time. The part I’m trying to figure out now is how to actually get someone in that HR/recruiting space to trust me enough to even consider a JV like that, especially when I don’t really have much social proof yet.Have you seen any good ways to approach this? For example, would you go through LinkedIn outreach, platforms like Upwork, or try to connect through communities first?
Just trying to understand the best entry point to find the right kind of partner.
 
keegand42 said:
those 300+ applications problem is actually your sales pitch right there, that number is specific enough to stop a hiring manager mid-scroll. the caveat though is that b2b cold outreach with a pain-point tool only works if youre targeting people who've already complained about it publicly, i ran linkedin sales navigator for 3 months targeting ops directors who posted about hiring volume and got a 14% reply rate just by referencing their own words back at them. if you go broad and pitch anyone with a job req open you'll get ignored, the specificity of who you reach out to matters more than the tool itself
Click to expand...
That’s actually a really good point and I agree the “300+ applicants” problem is strong enough to stop someone mid-scroll. I’ve seen a lot of people complain about this exact issue on Reddit and LinkedIn too. Where I’ve been struggling a bit is what happens after that. Even when the pain is clear, trust seems to be the bigger hurdle especially if they’re already using some internal workflow or tool, even if it’s not ideal.
I’ve tried reaching out to people who publicly complained about it (similar to what you mentioned), referencing their exact situation, even sending personalized Looms but in most cases I still couldn’t get a reply or even book a meeting. I also get the sense some teams are using workarounds (like asking for video responses), even though that introduces its own issues and isn’t ideal for all candidates.
That’s why I’m starting to think distribution or borrowing trust (through partnerships, etc.) might be the missing piece here.


When you ran that Sales Navigator campaign, what were you selling? And did those replies actually convert into calls or customers, or was it mostly just engagement?
 
elitebill said:
I actually agree with you on this and I feel like a lot of competitors probably got their initial traction exactly that way, just being physically present and building trust offline.

The challenge on my end is I’m not based in the US/Canada/Europe, so doing door-to-door or even local networking in those markets isn’t really possible for me right now.

I even thought about approaching local job boards and pitching it almost like an ATS add-on, but most of them already have their own ATS systems they’re pushing to their clients, so it’s been a bit tough there too.Even with things like cold calling, I’ve been hesitant because calling into those markets from abroad can easily come off as spam. Curious though , if you were in my position (selling into those markets remotely), how would you adapt that offline-first approach?
Click to expand...
Not really my area, but here are a couple ideas...

Maybe either try to target recruiters or hiring agencies online. And maybe you can make classified ads to hire people to do offline local marketing. Good luck!
 
Did you make any progress with this @elitebill? From your initial post, you said cold outbound, looms etc didn't work but I think what you probably did it not test enough angles. In fact, I can almost bet your offer just wasn't good enough, or your targeting. Get everything in line and cold outbound can work incredibly well.
 
in addition to what @Jason Starkey said, you should also participate in expos. These usually are yearly events in major, or culturally important cities in which newcomers to the B2B industry rent a cubicle / stand / whatever the hell it's called (I don't know the correct term, sorry) for the duration of the event (1-3 days usually, depending on how big the event is), and you display your products (or the best ones anyway) on your own stand and people who visit those events take notice and - if they're interested in what you have to offer - they will make contact with you for potential partnerships.

This works well, I worked for a B2B company in 2014 that was manufacturing industrial electronics (PIDs, thermal sensors, thermographs, all sorts of sensors and devices to record, and keep track of temperatures, humidity, etc..) and - since we were practically a nobody (at least on the global stage, locally we were a bit known, but we still had big competition, especially in 2016 when I left the company the competition had become insane over those 2 years, so we had to restructure...)

Anyway, the point is... participate in those expos in your country (if there are any available), or in neighboring countries if you can afford to get there (you must strive to afford!) and if your products are unique and useful... or at least if they have some angles to them that your competition doesn't yet offer, it's possible to land a few big partnerships that can set you up for the next 5-10 years. We did land 2 such partnerships during the 2015 expo that I've participated in along with the company I was working for... ok, one of our partners have dropped us few months later, but the other one had stuck with us at least until I have left the company, and it was amounting to about 25-30% of our monthly revenue if memory serves me well.

So, don't neglect these expos, they can be really profitable :) ... And also what Jason said too, those offline advertising options are also good for start-ups when they don't have a lot of budget yet for marketing and advertising (but you obviously need to come up with the money for renting your cubicle, otherwise you won't have access... unless you know a friend of a friend, of a friend :p )
 
Jason Starkey said:
Not really my area, but here are a couple ideas...

Maybe either try to target recruiters or hiring agencies online. And maybe you can make classified ads to hire people to do offline local marketing. Good luck!
Click to expand...
I actually think targeting recruiters and hiring agencies makes a lot of sense in theory. The challenge is that I've already tried quite a few of the obvious outreach routes that is cold emails, cold DMs, personalized Loom videos, reaching out to people actively hiring and that's partly why I've been questioning whether the issue is less about awareness and more about trust. Since it's a new product and I don't have paying customers or a lot of social proof yet, I'm not sure hiring people to do local offline marketing would be the best use of resources at this stage. My concern is that if I haven't fully proven the offer yet, scaling outreach, whether online or offline ,might just scale the same problem.
Also, because I'm based outside the US/Canada/Europe, the offline angle is a bit harder to execute effectively. I can definitely see how being physically present and building relationships locally would help, but it's a bit more challenging when you're selling remotely from another country.

Either way, I appreciate the ideas and thanks again for taking the time to share them.

On a side note, I actually replied to your previous comment the same day, but it looks like BHW held the response for approval or something because it only showed up much later. Not sure what's going on there, but I've noticed a pretty big delay between posting and comments appearing.

Thanks again and wishing you all the best as well.
 
BhplatinumUK said:
Did you make any progress with this @elitebill? From your initial post, you said cold outbound, looms etc didn't work but I think what you probably did it not test enough angles. In fact, I can almost bet your offer just wasn't good enough, or your targeting. Get everything in line and cold outbound can work incredibly well.
Click to expand...
To answer your question, no real progress yet unfortunately.
One thing I'd say though is that I don't think the issue was a lack of testing. For cold outreach alone, I tested multiple angles over time. I wasn't just sending one email to thousands of people and hoping for the best. We ran campaigns in batches, reviewed the results, adjusted the messaging, tested different pain points, different offers, different subject lines, and kept refining from there.
On the targeting side, I was mainly reaching out to people who were actively hiring or had hired before, so I don't think it was a case of targeting completely unrelated prospects either.
What's interesting is that I've spoken to a few founders in the hiring/recruitment software space who went through something similar. In some cases, they spent months doing cold outreach with zero traction, and the thing that eventually moved the needle was getting distribution through a platform like AppSumo.
I actually applied to AppSumo myself. They liked the product, but because of the volume of applications they receive now, they told me they generally want to see around 20 paying customers before moving forward. The more I dig into this, the more I feel hiring is a particularly trust-driven category. You're asking companies to change part of their hiring process, which is a sensitive decision and usually carries more internal friction than a typical B2C purchase.
 
tazarbm said:
in addition to what @Jason Starkey said, you should also participate in expos. These usually are yearly events in major, or culturally important cities in which newcomers to the B2B industry rent a cubicle / stand / whatever the hell it's called (I don't know the correct term, sorry) for the duration of the event (1-3 days usually, depending on how big the event is), and you display your products (or the best ones anyway) on your own stand and people who visit those events take notice and - if they're interested in what you have to offer - they will make contact with you for potential partnerships.

This works well, I worked for a B2B company in 2014 that was manufacturing industrial electronics (PIDs, thermal sensors, thermographs, all sorts of sensors and devices to record, and keep track of temperatures, humidity, etc..) and - since we were practically a nobody (at least on the global stage, locally we were a bit known, but we still had big competition, especially in 2016 when I left the company the competition had become insane over those 2 years, so we had to restructure...)

Anyway, the point is... participate in those expos in your country (if there are any available), or in neighboring countries if you can afford to get there (you must strive to afford!) and if your products are unique and useful... or at least if they have some angles to them that your competition doesn't yet offer, it's possible to land a few big partnerships that can set you up for the next 5-10 years. We did land 2 such partnerships during the 2015 expo that I've participated in along with the company I was working for... ok, one of our partners have dropped us few months later, but the other one had stuck with us at least until I have left the company, and it was amounting to about 25-30% of our monthly revenue if memory serves me well.

So, don't neglect these expos, they can be really profitable :) ... And also what Jason said too, those offline advertising options are also good for start-ups when they don't have a lot of budget yet for marketing and advertising (but you obviously need to come up with the money for renting your cubicle, otherwise you won't have access... unless you know a friend of a friend, of a friend :p )
Click to expand...
Thanks for taking the time to share that. I can definitely see how expos could work, especially for a B2B product where trust plays such a big role.
What you described actually makes a lot of sense. If I could get in front of recruiters, HR teams, or hiring managers in person and show them the product directly, I can see how that would be a very different conversation from a cold email or LinkedIn message. The challenge for me is that I haven't really come across many HR or recruiting-focused expos in my part of the world, although I'll definitely keep an eye out for them. I have seen expos for other industries like manufacturing and technology, but not many that seem directly aligned with hiring and recruitment.
The cost of renting a booth itself isn't really the concern. My bigger hesitation is that the product is still very early and doesn't yet have paying customers or much social proof behind it. Part of me wonders whether attending an expo now would be a bit premature, versus waiting until I have a few customers and success stories that make the conversations easier.
That said, I completely agree with the underlying point. Being able to meet people face-to-face, demonstrate the product, answer questions in real time, and build trust is probably something that's difficult to replicate through online outreach alone.

I haven't given up on the product at all. If anything, I'm just trying to figure out what the next distribution channel looks like after testing a lot of the usual outbound approaches.
 
elitebill said:
My bigger hesitation is that the product is still very early and doesn't yet have paying customers or much social proof behind it. Part of me wonders whether attending an expo now would be a bit premature, versus waiting until I have a few customers and success stories that make the conversations easier.
Click to expand...
you can participate as a fully new startup, that's one of the best things about these expos: they allow you to attract partnerships and make a name for yourself, so that's why I mentioned them :)
 
elitebill said:
To answer your question, no real progress yet unfortunately.
One thing I'd say though is that I don't think the issue was a lack of testing. For cold outreach alone, I tested multiple angles over time. I wasn't just sending one email to thousands of people and hoping for the best. We ran campaigns in batches, reviewed the results, adjusted the messaging, tested different pain points, different offers, different subject lines, and kept refining from there.
On the targeting side, I was mainly reaching out to people who were actively hiring or had hired before, so I don't think it was a case of targeting completely unrelated prospects either.
What's interesting is that I've spoken to a few founders in the hiring/recruitment software space who went through something similar. In some cases, they spent months doing cold outreach with zero traction, and the thing that eventually moved the needle was getting distribution through a platform like AppSumo.
I actually applied to AppSumo myself. They liked the product, but because of the volume of applications they receive now, they told me they generally want to see around 20 paying customers before moving forward. The more I dig into this, the more I feel hiring is a particularly trust-driven category. You're asking companies to change part of their hiring process, which is a sensitive decision and usually carries more internal friction than a typical B2C purchase.
Click to expand...
Can you message me a link to the product? I have some customers who are fairly big operators in the recruitment space.
 
umar_seo said:
I think your biggest issue is not the product, its distribution.


To be honest lot of founders make same mistake. They spend 12-18 months building something good then realize nobody knows it exists.


If I was in your position I would stop trying to sell the software first and sell the outcome instead. For example don't say "here is my hiring SaaS". Say "I help companies filter 300+ applicants and save 10+ hours per hire". Big difference.


Also for B2B trust is everything. Nobody wants to be the first customer especially when hiring is involved. I would probably take 5-10 companies on for free or very cheap in exchange for testimonials, case studies and permission to use their results publicly.


Partnership route also makes sense. One person with audience on LinkedIn can do more for you than sending 1,000 cold emails yourself. I would definitely explore JVs with recruiters, HR consultants and agencies already serving your target market.


One thing I noticed is you are targeting people who are actively hiring. Those people are usually busy and getting pitched all day. Maybe try agencies, recruiters and HR service providers instead. Close one partner and you could get multiple clients through them.


Doesn't sound like a product problem from what you described. Sounds more like a credibility and distribution problem. Pretty normal stage for a new B2B SaaS honestly.


Just my 2 cents. I wouldn't quit yet after spending 18 months building it. I'd focus 90% on getting proof and distribution now.
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I completely agree that distribution is incredibly important. In many ways, distribution is the majority of the battle in business.

That said, I think in this particular case the challenge goes a bit deeper than positioning or even distribution alone. I've tested a lot of the angles you mentioned over time. I wasn't only pitching the software itself , I also tried outcome-based messaging around helping companies filter large volumes of applicants, save time, and reduce hiring workload.

What I've found is that hiring is an unusually trust-driven category. Companies aren't just buying a tool; they're changing part of their hiring process, which is a sensitive decision. Most B2B buyers don't want to be the first customer, especially when hiring is involved. They want proof that it works, good support, and confidence that they won't have to spend months hand-holding a vendor while the product matures.

I do agree that getting 5–10 companies using it and gathering testimonials and case studies would help enormously. In my experience, the obstacle hasn't really been price, it's been credibility and trust.

I've also tried approaching agencies, recruiters, HR providers, and partnership opportunities. At one point we sent well over 100,000 outreach emails across different segments, so it wasn't limited to companies that were actively hiring. I even explored JV opportunities, including here on BHW, but haven't had much traction there yet.

So overall, I agree with your conclusion that it's largely a proof and distribution problem. I've seen other founders in the hiring software space mention that it took them years to land their first meaningful customers as well. That's why I haven't given up on the product as I think it's more a matter of building enough credibility and trust than a lack of demand.
 
tazarbm said:
you can participate as a fully new startup, that's one of the best things about these expos: they allow you to attract partnerships and make a name for yourself, so that's why I mentioned them :)
Click to expand...
I will look into that and it definitely makes a lot of sense esp from a trust building perspective.
 
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