🎯 Building Better B2B SaaS…

Hi there,

Keen to build the next world-changing product? We got some insights on making it big at Founder’s Den; looking specifically at startup-corporate collaboration to fund big projects.

Missed it? What a shame, we had an awesome time with founders, investors and the superheroes over at PURA Beverages and Next176. 

No worries, though, you can still get all the keynote insights here.

As always, we’re here to add value at every stage of your innovation journey:

1. Startup Phase

2. Growth Phase

3. Scale/Sale Phase

Generating Solid Ideas for B2B SaaS Products

We all have a lot of ideas, but in the B2B space, how do you know which ideas are actually worth pursuing? The simplest route is to build solutions for problems you know exist, and corporates are great for this. If you worked at a corporate, or know someone who works at a corporate, you can get some insights on what they need/are battling with internally. Otherwise, this site tells you whose financial reports are coming out every week – analyse those for cost centres (places where they’re losing money) to give you ideas that already have a market.

A Unique Approach to MedTech

While most startups in HealthTech seem to be focused on building B2C solutions like AI and virtual doctors etc., it’s worthwhile noting that sometimes it pays to go the other way. Realising how hospitals battle to manage their workflow with pen and paper, WardWorx built a healthcare provider-focused management tool – have a look over here.

Successful VS Failed MVPs

In our recent focus on helping develop the e-commerce space, we put together a list of international MVP examples, looking at startups that succeeded VS a few famous failures. Now, they’re all a few years old, so it’s extremely interesting to re-evaluate and see what you can learn from some of the big names’ approaches.

Are you in the start phase? Have questions? Hit reply and let us know how we can help.

Expanding Market Reach through Strategic Partnerships

One of the highlights of our recent Founder’s Den keynote was Tramayne Monaghan, Chief Ventures Officer of Old Mutual-backed venture studio, Next176, who explained the key to getting corporate support as a startup is to 1) Build solutions that can impact billions of lives; 2) don’t think too small, build for eventual huge reach and value. Of course, you’re first going to 3) Test and develop it locally but have your plan for taking it worldwide ready. And then, learn to 4) Back yourself – if you are truly the best person to build a solution, no corporate can steal your idea, so pitch it to them and you might get enough resources to pull it off.

The Right Product Ownership Model for Your Business

Having a product owner (PO) helps mitigate risk and secure better results because the PO can provide invaluable guidance on worthwhile next steps for you as entrepreneur. But it’s a niche skill and sourcing the best talent is tough, hence one new solution is opting for a product consultant. Instead of an internal full-time employee, you get a fully vetted and highly experienced product pro from the Specno team to sit with you and help you achieve your product results. How does it stack up against hiring internally? See a complete breakdown of all the pros and cons here on LinkedIn. 

Getting Better Insights from Your Users

A few helpful insights for user interviews are to keep it focused by 1) breaking demographics or core questions into separate projects and 2) sticking to a guide for each project, aiming for 5 quality interviews for each with 3) open-ended questions and probing 4) “Why?” after every answer for deeper insights. Also, find out why it’s best to 5) conduct interviews with a small team of people, record them and 6) do internal debriefs directly after each conversation – see the 12-point guide to doing customer interviews.

Need help growing faster? Maybe it's augmenting your team, or perhaps coffee with one of our growth experts — either way, hit reply and let’s find your solution.

Advanced Customer Retention Strategies for B2B

A fairly novel idea for reducing churn and securing your recurring revenue is the Customer Success model proposed by Nick Mehta and Dan Steinman in their book. In essence, it’s moving your support from a reactive state (responding to people’s queries) to an active state – having a team that proactively contacts each customer to make sure they’re getting value and success from your product. Sure, it doesn’t scale well in large B2C projects, but can work really well in B2B, where you have fewer, potentially enterprise-based clients.

4 Reasons to Never Stop Innovating

Larger companies often battle with innovation. It makes sense: When you grow, you normally end up with one or two well-developed revenue streams, and then culture shifts from innovation to “protecting the revenue streams”. Our CEO Jacques, however, recently told TechInAfrica that maintaining your thirst for innovation at larger sizes is the key to 1) securing business during economic downturns, 2) increasing efficiency, 3) gaining access to larger global markets and 4) future-proofing in a competitive and evolving tech space.

Inside SA’s On-Going Grocery Delivery Battle

It’s one of the biggest lockdown success stories, ignited by Checkers Sixty60 and now fueled by every retailer doing what they can to keep up with small-basket offerings and last-mile perfection inside SA’s R650bn retail industry. If you’re playing in the e-commerce/last mile space, these are the 7 core delivery challenges that need solving to capitalise on this growing industry.

Want to scale faster? We have people that are comfortable with the discomfort of the scale phase. Hit reply and let us know how we can augment your team.

Have your say…

Hit reply if you think we’ve hit or missed the mark, tell us what you’d like to see or hear more of and, just in general, what would really add value to your journey…

Did someone forward you this email?