Swipe Files - 📂 B2B doesn't mean boring-to-boring

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Today's newsletter is written by my Conversion Factory cofounder, Zach Stevens.

He's the best designer I know and has deep experience with SaaS.

90% of SaaS is B2B.

There are some consumer brands, but most are focused on business to business. Without fail, most founders think this means sucking up to dudes in suits, trying to solve a huge problem that is worth billions of dollars, and an acquisition by Salesforce.

Worst of all, they see B2B brands as boring, or at the very least, trite and more overplayed than every song on the Top 40.

But, I don’t think it has to be this way and the remedy for boring B2B business is a three-ingredient recipe:

1. Choosing a niche, underserved market
2. Repurposing a good product for the niche
3. Aligning your brand with that market

1. Choosing a niche, underserved market

The foundational problem with B2B, as it’s perceived, is that we forget how many businesses are out there and that huge markets are not represented in the S&P 500, Nasdaq, or Techcrunch.

For example, there are:

21,000 tattoo parlors in the US alone that make up a $1.6B market

9,253 musical instrument stores with guitar sales alone accounting for $2B in annual sales

And over 19,000 ice cream shops in the US accounting for $5B in sales

All of these are legit, real businesses that make real money and need real tools just as much, if not more, than the big guys to get ahead. Each one with its own unique patterns and problems that generalized software can’t solve.

Most importantly, none of these industries are boring at all.

And even though I’ve listed three particularly fun examples, local handymen, auto repair shops, or pool cleaners have just as much depth and fascination to their business as any large tech company.

2. Repurposing a good product for the niche

There is a lot of good software out there. But, most of it is generalized and every industry brings its own “nice-to-haves” that are disparate enough that the large companies can’t justify implementing the feature.

A good example is Martialytics, a CRM and billing software for Martial Arts instructors. They have over 850 schools using their tool and pull in over $500k ARR with a team of two people.

Here’s the crazy part:

They didn’t create CRMs, billing tools, or inventory management, they tweaked all of those existing tools and packaged them for martial arts instructors.

Because they picked an underserved niche, they were able to see where existing tools fell short, look for patterns, and create a brand that feels tailor-made for the market despite being a concoction of existing frameworks and software concepts.

3. Aligning your brand with the market

Nothing sets the foundation of a killer brand like a niche product for a niche market.

Here’s why:

Everything you need to steal your brand is right in front of your nose.

Unlike scattered, generalized software, a laser-focused niche permits your brand to create visuals that actually resonate with your user base instead of abstracting visuals to suit the masses.

Think about how different an accounting software for tattoo shops would look compared to Quickbooks.

Or how you could integrate pool-party motifs into a CRM for pool cleaners.

All of which would set your brand apart from the get-go and take you from being one of many to being the one and only.

B2B SaaS doesn’t have to be boring and you can create an awesome software brand that helps a ton of people without slogging through the process.

Pick an underserved niche, repurpose an existing software for them, and build a brand around the motifs within the industry.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

—Corey

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