Ep. 215: Stop Losing Leads: How to Fix Your B2B Startup Positioning Architecture

Stop Losing Leads: How to Fix Your B2B Startup Positioning Architecture

Most B2B tech startups hit a ceiling when founder-led sales and marketing stalls growth. When they assess why their pipeline has stalled, they almost always assume they have a demand generation problem. However, a deeper analysis usually uncovers that the actual pain point is a fractured positioning and go-to-market (GTM) architecture. So, how can B2B tech startups diagnose and fix their positioning architecture to ignite more robust, predictable , and sustainable growth?

That’s why we’re talking to return guest Adrijana Daragon (Founder, GTM Advantage), who shares her expertise and insights on how to fix your B2B startup positioning architecture. During our conversation, Adrijana shared some of the common pitfalls B2B that cause tech startups to fail, specifically focusing on the disconnect between product features and market needs. She stressed the critical importance of early market validation and understanding customer needs instead of obsessing over the technology and features. Adrijana also explained why founders must narrow their focus to specific ideal customer segments to ensure their messaging truly resonates with potential buyers. She concluded by highlighting the value of continuous iteration and learning from pilot projects to refine GTM strategies and attain scalable, predictable growth.

https://youtu.be/mO99oSKyYGE

Topics discussed in episode:

[02:56] Why startups often mistake a positioning and go-to-market architecture problem for a lack of market demand

[04:30] The reason targeting the right ICP fails if the customer lacks a sense of urgency or purchasing intent

[05:17] How to identify when a founder becomes a growth bottleneck during the transition to a delegated team model

[10:49] The danger of “fake validation” from startup ecosystems versus getting reality checks from actual buyers

[21:30] Why increasing marketing budgets is ineffective if your messaging fails to connect with the customer’s problem

[30:51] How narrowing your focus to a single industry enables faster iteration and more scalable traction

[39:36] Using a growth mindset to define success criteria, turning pilot projects into long-term client relationships

Companies and links mentioned:

Adrijana Daragon on LinkedIn 

GTM Advantage

Transcript

Adrijana Daragon, Christian Klepp

Adrijana Daragon  00:00

Founders think about the go to market as a post, post activity, versus doing it early on, so meaning they are really of over focus on technology alone and thinking when the talk technology will be the product will be launched, that’s when the customers will come, especially like if the founders are engineers or coming from the medical background, this is the domain. This is where the this is the comfort zone. So they are really focusing on the technology. And that’s true, this is like bigger competitive advantage, but the commercial part, getting really early on understanding who are the market, what’s the feedback, even integrating that into a building technology so important.

Christian Klepp  00:43

Most B2B tech startups hit a wall when founder-led marketing stalls growth. When they analyze where they went wrong, they almost always assume they have a demand problem. But when you look deeper, you realize that their real pain point lies in their positioning and go to market architecture. So how can B2B startups fix their positioning architecture problem to ignite more robust and sustainable growth? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Adrijana Daragon, who will be answering this question. She’s the founder at Go To Market (GTM) Advantage, who helps turn go to market into a predictable pipeline and revenue for B2B tech startups. Let’s dive right in. Okay, and off we go. I’m gonna say, Adrijana Daragon, welcome to the show.

Adrijana Daragon  01:30

Hello. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Christian.

Christian Klepp  01:33

Great to be connected again, Adrijana. And I’m gonna say thank you to Anna Wondany from Hey CMO, for connecting us. And I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because we’re going to talk about something that, on the surface doesn’t seem like it’s extremely important, but we’re going to start unpacking that, and then we’ll realize like, oh, wow, we really should be paying attention to this. Take some notes, learn and be inspired no?

Adrijana Daragon  01:58

Yes, true. I’m really excited about it, and I can see really quite some founders can benefit from this knowledge.

Christian Klepp  02:05

Absolutely, absolutely. So if you don’t mind, we’ll, we’ll just jump straight in, and I’ll ask you the first question. So you’re, I’m going to say, on a mission to help B2B Tech scale ups, grow and increase their inbound leads. But for this conversation, I’d like to focus on this following topic, and then we can unpack it from there. So the topic is how B2B startups can fix their positioning architecture problem. Now that sounds like a really fancy marketing term, but we’re going to unpack it now and then everybody will realize, like, how crucial this actually is. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with the following question. So Adrijana, in our previous conversation, you mentioned that most B2B startups think they have a demand problem, but in reality, when you dig deeper, what they actually have is a positioning and go to market architecture problem. So can you please explain that?

Adrijana Daragon  02:56

Sure. So it’s highly depends on the stage the startup scale up is it’s different challenges. There are different challenges at the beginning, when there is early stage. Startup is about just doing different tests, trying the founders, typically the one that driving the sales and marketing efforts and connecting, getting the early feedback, validating it afterwards, when it starts to be already, you gain traction. You know, you had a successful especially in deep tech. It’s a lot about the pilot, securing both successful pilots, moving from the pilots to for to the ongoing client relationships. That’s when the it’s becomes much more about challenge of not only trying, testing different activities, but really seeing how what really makes sense, because there are a lot of challenges when you have a lot of activities, but we don’t bring the results, we don’t bring the revenue You want, and that’s especially when I work with startups. When we have both conversations, we have the initial demand, interest, especially interest. We have those conversations with potential clients, however they don’t convert. And that’s really where we are, kind of talking about the not originally positioning itself a problem, but it’s also about the go to market. And one big mistake clients do is when they focus on the target ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), but the target ICP, it doesn’t have a sense of urgency to buy, so the purchasing intent is not there. So that’s why, like a lot of times, you have a lot of internet conversations, everybody says, so your solution looks really interesting. However, that doesn’t result in result in the sales?

Christian Klepp  04:55

Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, you brought some really great points there, and I add two follow up questions for you. So I think the first one, especially when you’re talking about startups, and I can’t help but ask you this question, but do you sometimes feel when you’re interacting with your clients, especially when you’re trying to address these problems with them? Do you sometimes feel that it’s the founder that is the bottleneck?

Adrijana Daragon  05:17

It’s true as well. Like you know, as a startup grows as well, the founder learns a lot, and it’s also, it’s a big growth journey as well, big growth journey. And as well activities we do. The mindset also shifts with every stage. So there are like, different stages of a company. When it’s founding team, it’s small team. When you bring the first, highest, first outsource, outsourcing that depends already, where you need to communicate clearly that to delegate what you want actually to achieve. So these people know your vision and goals. That’s really when it starts to be the first bottleneck of really making when you are bringing more people, how the it can they can work most effectively as well as a team?

Christian Klepp  06:08

Yeah, yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely. So that’s, that’s the first question. The second question is, and I know you and I both know what positioning is, but I feel for people outside the marketing discipline, they throw that, that statement or that word around very freely. So let’s just clear the air there a little bit, and just please break it down for us. What does positioning mean, and how is it relevant to inbound and revenue and other things like that?

Adrijana Daragon  06:39

I think it’s there are multiple aspects, but this positioning is more. What do you want to stand in there, in in the minds of and hearts of other people? How do you want to be for them? Be remembered so it’s not only remembered so that people can say and articulate also well, what you do for yourself, uh, yourself. And then obviously, ideally, that also, it’s repeatable, that also the clients and the rest can say, and that’s not that easy sounds, but it’s not only one statement, positioning statement, and when it’s all done, positioning is a lot about work together, the about the ICP and for the ICP, so ideal client profile? And that’s a lot about understanding, especially if it is multiple industries, multiple especially on enterprises or like, there are big buying cycles, who are the right people. So it’s a buying center. There are a lot of people who are users, who are economical buyers, decision makers. So this is a lot about work on this ICP and value propositions for each of them will be different. So the positioning work also includes this value proposition, especially linking what’s the value, what’s the value, what are the problems they have, and how you help your solution helps that to work. So it’s like customer centric communication about the solution, which is very hard sometimes for the tech startups, who are typically over investing in the technology, and they talk about the features, but not so much in the customer language, about really deeply understanding customer understanding who they are and what they do, what are the problems and how it solves? And the big missing piece, and which is what I have in my methodology, where I work, and this is really important, crucial part not to miss, is the part of when, not only who, but then, and that when part is about urgency, sense of urgency. Do does the target, ICP, know that we have this problem? We are aware about it. Do they actively seek solutions? And you are at this stage, at this stage, so because the right person, but the wrong moment, zero outcome. So it’s, the sale will not be done. So it’s, this is especially important. While a lot of pilot conversations, like after discovery calls stall is because of this that they have this interest. However, the urgency is not there, and it’s a lot in especially with good AI solutions, or, like really talking about long term innovations, because it requires a lot of change of the behavior system processes, how they work currently, with how we do business. Currently, be aware. But this is this problem. But are we really actively looking to change solution? And currently that’s very important part of as well work of his overall positioning, because that will mean otherwise, you just have a lot of conversations, conversations, and really very small amount of them, lead. Leading to the really close, close deals.

Christian Klepp  10:03

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I like how you said, like, right person, wrong time, that almost sounds like dating situation. It’s also transferable to the world of like, customers, right? And that’s absolutely true, because if you identify, if you identify the right target audience, but this is not the right time, right? Because it’s a different because you always have to look at the different stages of their journey, right?

Adrijana Daragon  10:25

Yes.

Christian Klepp  10:25

And unfortunately, in B2B, whether it’s tech or otherwise, the buyer, the buyer cycles tend to be a bit longer, right?

Adrijana Daragon  10:35

Yes.

Christian Klepp  10:36

Absolutely so, based on what you said, and I know you brought up already one of them, but like, based on what you’ve said in the past couple of minutes, what are some of the key pitfalls you would say B2B marketing teams need to avoid, and what should they do instead?

Adrijana Daragon  10:49

Yes, so for me, really the I see that founders think about a go to market as a post, post activity versus doing it early on. So meaning they are really of over focus on technology alone and thinking when the talk technology will be, the product will be launched, that’s when the customers will come. That’s the one that typically, especially like if the founders are engineers or coming from the medical background. This is the domain. This is where they this is the comfort zone. So they are really focusing on the technology. And that’s true, this is like bigger competitive advantage, but the commercial part, getting really early on understanding who are the market, what’s the feedback, even integrating that into a building technology so important. So that’s the common pitfall about starting it early. It needs to be still very lean in beginning, it’s more lean. And one of the key things of lean activities is about thinking who are the customers, exactly who are the right customers, and then having that early validation. So it follows also to the second point. So one was early. Think about go to market earlier than when you typically do. Second is real versus fake interest. So what I mean, a lot of founders live in them more, sometimes in the bubble of their ecosystem, meaning like they are get the early positive feedback from incubators, accelerators they are in, as well the different support groups, plus also our startup founder saying, Oh, your solution. Can you give me feedback on your solution? Yes, it sounds interesting. Your technology is really interesting. Yeah, it should be interesting, and that’s what we take it as a given feedback. Okay, I validated. I got this initial interest. However, this is not the target audience who would actually buy so these are the kind of I call it a fake validation. It’s good to get also support system. To get this, because it’s really long journey entrepreneurship and having building the startup, you need this support system. However, you also need to have reality checks. And the reality checks are really thinking and going in the market and having conversations, if you are having a solution, let’s say in medtech, selling to the hospitals, so then going and actually talking to you. How does it sound? That feed? Obviously, it’s harder to get into that contact. There are some ways where we could do, do it, but this is really very critical moment when you get the actual feedback from the person who would will in, will be so valuable in creating your product. And then also, what are the different criteria they look at, what is really the what are the propositions we are looking at and how we make the decisions, and that’s very important as well, to make sure that you get that early on. So these are the few pitfalls. I would say.

Christian Klepp  14:14

These are the few pitfalls, but they are super important.

Adrijana Daragon  14:17

Oh yes.

Christian Klepp  14:18

They’re so important that I have to ask you some follow up questions. Okay, so based on the first one right when you’re talking about who are the right customers and getting that early validation, how, in your experience, is there a right way to get early validation?

Adrijana Daragon  14:35

It’s there is not only one way, there are many, many ways, but it’s just very important. Is also the mindset of it’s active listening. It’s more about you have your own idea and you’re in love with your product. That’s why you have a startup. It’s also very important to be open for the feedback, and good and bad feedback is also very important. So there are some a typically like also for the research, where you don’t guide the questions yes or no. You want to dig deeper. That’s also very important. It’s more, I think it’s the mindset, where you go you really eager to learn. You go there to eager to learn and to really listen and to understand. That’s the journey, when you want to understand your potential client, how you can really make the life easier. That’s the way. It’s a little beyond going journey where it’s really almost saying that the product market fit happens also a very similar in similar time. Then you can describe and talk the problem of the customer better than the customer himself or herself. So that’s the it’s a journey so you will but this is like really knowing that, that it’s important to hear from them, versus have only the inside view, which is and really seeking those conversations and have this open mind mindset is super important.

Christian Klepp  15:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that’s absolutely right. I totally agree with that. Okay, so that was the first follow up question. The second follow up question, which I think is so important, based on what you said, this reality check, right? Because, you know, we, I have some experience with this as well, like, you know, it’s especially talking with a founder, and they’re in their team, and I always, I always call it like the internal high five, right? The internal High Five means, okay, we built a great product. Boom, fantastic. And then, and then internally, it’s like, I believe the market needs this because of the and I don’t agree that they need this because of what, whatever the reason. And everybody internally agrees. But you and I both know that, as marketers, it doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help us to just agree with a lot of these I’m calling them internal hypotheses. So from your experience, how do you get these startups, the founders and their teams to accept that while you can have this hypothesis, you also need to have a proper reality check to validate everything that you’re saying internally. Because sometimes as you, as you well, know not all founders, but many founders. Is it the mindset internally is, my baby is the most beautiful baby in the world. Don’t you dare insult my baby. All right. So how do you get them out of this mindset? How do you get them to be like, okay, you know, in order to grow, in order to scale, you have to be open to validation for the market. How do you how do you get them? How do you get them to that point?

Adrijana Daragon  17:35

Sure, so I think here it’s super important is to have different people in your support system, and very in a closed network, and part of the founders have the personal network, especially when they or we have advisory boards, part of a board who are really, typically people come from the industries differ, or they have also have done the startups. Of could be ex founder, founders who have successful exits. Or it can be, especially in some specialized tech, it can be really coming advisors from the industry who really know more more about the target clients, what’s the problem and how and the typical challenges the startup can occur, and that’s very important about utilizing it. So it’s also up to the to the person who is if it’s they have active role as an advisor or the senior expert, or only given a fractional, fractional person who really can help and structure or some of go to market is really to have this open dialog. So it’s not about really just exactly have this consensus, consensus atmosphere, that it’s okay. What the founder is saying when we would just would work on this is it’s very important to challenge that and to challenge that early on, because that’s when it’s really this diversity of expertise, and especially this relevant expertise, is super important to build around and actually leverage in the right way, asking the big questions not working in the silos. So it’s more about really, that sometimes with advisory boards, they are more the name. It’s more for the VC (Venture Capital), plus also for some of yes presentations, events, so for more of trust building. However, it’s really as well. The how I see the founders who get much more benefit is really who use, use the senior experts in the right way of having almost milestone checks really saying this is what we are working on. Let’s look back, and this is why we didn’t gain those pilots. While we did a lot of effort, we had a lot of conversations with those enterprises, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Let’s review that, and it’s more like bringing one level high of really bad view and challenge some of the assumptions which were there before.

Christian Klepp  20:33

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. And what you said is also really important, getting everybody to stop working in silos and exposing them to the to the to the bigger ecosystem. So we were talking about, like, dealing with pushback, and unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you for more advice on that, because the next question is about something that I think you’re very familiar with, right? Because you’re dealing with a lot of these B2B tech startups. How do you deal with pushback from founders? You know, when you tell them that, listen, you don’t have a demand problem, you have a positioning and go to market architecture problem, and they look at you as if you’re like, What are you talking about, right? What is this positioning? What is this go to market architecture? This sounds to me like a waste of time, right? But how do you, how do you convince them that it’s, it’s, in fact, in their interest to deal with this, and how do you deal with that pushback?

Adrijana Daragon  21:30

Yes, it’s more it’s also depends on the stage like which, how big it is, not over engineer some of activities early on. So it’s, yes, the demand is needed. But there’s also that the big risk is if we put especially, they get, sometimes the funding over and they press P dial on marketing budget. Advertising, I have seen that and then, and they are not very, very clear who are the right client, and especially as we talked who then do they, and especially in a bigger organizations targeting so we could really put a lot of advertising in the right target audience with a wrong message, and they could. And no surprise, the results don’t, don’t come afterwards, the deals are not coming those people, they might join your mailing list webinar, and that’s so far as we get, because we, most probably, we were just interested in what’s new out there. However, they are not really the right person who in the organization deciding this all it is really about your messaging didn’t connect to the problem, and they wouldn’t even book a call afterwards with the sales team. So this is the way I see it’s where it’s really about looking overall, about full funnel, not only about saying, if we get big volume of people leads, then everything will be okay. It’s it’s much more about lower volume, but of a right, right leads that will create less house, less activity. Because you can, you can really mistake a lot of activity will give a lot of good results. It’s more sometimes really stripping down, seeing really what’s working. And it requires somebody who would understand that really looking at the data, looking what, what are the different tests? What resonates? This is the stage when you typically did some tests. Early on, you are still at the stage of trying and working and understanding, but at the stage when you did some now it’s a time to really look at it review and see where you double down and what you don’t focus on. It’s always, I think it’s in sales and marketing is a lot about where do you put priorities? Where do you focus on and more, I think sometimes less the activities, but really, very clearly, can really simplify also the team effort to get into those deals, because sometimes the deals had stalled in the middle, but you didn’t have time because you were so busy. But if you would take time review it, maybe adjust the positioning, and then revive the conversation that could lead to this, to the to big ticket or deal, and that will will be much more important, versus doing extra trials on marketing.

Christian Klepp  24:36

That’s exactly it. And you, I think you hit on something that is worth repeating. It’s also a lot about the strategy, right? Like a lot of a lot of startups that I’ve seen, they jump straight into the execution, right? Like you talked about it, like ads and then and lead generation. And I’m not saying that those things are not important. They are, but if you don’t have that understanding. Who the target audience is, and you don’t have a strategy in terms of, like, how you’re going to approach the market, you’re just going to be burning through money. And you and I both know how much ads cost, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s like a vacuum cleaner now. But you touched on something that I think it’s worth revisiting and going back to, because it’s again. I know it might sound a bit repetitive, but why is it so important for them to understand, or have a deep understanding about who this potential customer is? Right? Why is it important for them to know that, and why is it important for them to understand the buyer’s journey? Because, you know, depending on what stage of the journey these people are in, they may have different motivations, or they may have different reasons for looking for a product or solution.

Adrijana Daragon  25:49

I think it’s, it’s really important. That will make or break your traction and more, and that’s really the part of understanding and speaking in about the customer, sometimes even better than the customer themselves. Makes the customer really feel you understand you are credible, you build… I can trust you. And that’s really it says speed dial. It’s a speed dial to really, to retraction, to really, this is what is important part is to especially in B2B, you, it’s building credibility and trust so that you really know, yes, you have a great credentials in terms of a technology that your solution. That’s important part. However, the equally is also important, the the understanding commercially how this technology can help your customers. It’s really about your customers, especially when we talk about you, mentioned about buying centers and complex organizations. That’s when it’s really thereby. It’s a lot about reducing risks. It’s a lot about minimizing transition costs. So it’s more about that you are not really too risky for them to to buy from. And this is it goes beyond the technology. It’s a lot about understanding and talking in the language of a customer that you have discovered very clearly, very proactively, in first, in your mind, when afterwards, all your communication. And this is where it comes the strategy is super important. But I see it’s it’s not a strategy where you need just a document, somebody quickly did it, or like now, it’s the AI or somebody out of touch. It requires, as well, real validation. So that’s where it’s important. The strategy with validation, which is not on paper document, it’s really about kind of almost agreement of what’s the core, or what’s the core, what we are doing, trying to achieve, and how the way we trying to achieve that. So this helps you, is for the founder, for the rest of the team, and then we are talking about gaining traction, bring the rest of together. The strategy changes over time. Some elements the market also adjusts. Technologies adjust, but this is super important part of stop wasting time on of doing too many activities and really looking at what, what really will move a needle.

Christian Klepp  28:39

Wait a second, you mean that the strategy has to be adjusted. I thought the strategy is just something you do one time and then you forget about it.

Adrijana Daragon  28:49

I think it’s that’s why, that’s what this gets a lot of times. I think it’s as well in a tech companies, they do especially early stages that pitch documents thinking overall, that’s the part of saying what’s addressable market. So say we did, we have our covered. I have our go to market. We have our plan. That’s it’s great. It gives us some of her some it’s already good starting points, but there is much more on that. It’s really ongoingly effort, and that’s why it’s why there are really the teams who succeed. Is really the founder, is leading the sales and marketing organization. And then they are, they are close to the customer. So it’s not only to the product, but we need to be close to the customer. And then they are like, really bridge, bridging the gaps as well as we go, because it’s also the different challenges. But being close to the customer and hearing that and not working in a silo and bringing back that knowledge is super important. And so it’s that document changes a lot of times. It’s, it’s, can be, it’s not 180 story. It’s. Sometimes it will be big pivots. There are pivots as well. You scrap your current product, and you see that some of the one leg can really move forward, like there are examples like Spotify, and I was wherever I started and they landed. But this is moving. It’s a moving piece, not one set in stone piece.

Christian Klepp  30:22

Right. So I think for this next question, if you really want to get very deep, it will take us several hours to talk about it, but just in the interest of time, maybe you can just give us a top level perspective, right? Just based on your own experience, walk us through how the B2B startups should fix their positioning, go to market architecture problems. So just give us the key steps. What are the key components that need to be in that process?

Adrijana Daragon  30:51

I think it’s in beginning, especially it’s important of looking at and picking one target customer. So one industry, one target customer, thinking about your resources. It’s a lot about your resources, especially a lot of technologies are agnostic. So that’s the typical pitfall of saying it’s for everyone, but it’s almost for nobody, really. So it’s about picking one of the customer target, and that’s typically comes either which one you are familiar with, where you come, come from, or you have great access to as well. So it’s really there. You can see it’s it helps you to validate early, to get access to real people, talk to them, to see, to see, to get that feedback, fine tune and not over developer MVP (Minimum Viable Product). MVP like the first products a lot of times as well, because that’s really what we talked that it comes together together, that MVP, it will be most of the times. You will scratch it. You will build a next level moving forward. But this will help you to launch, launch, and iterate faster and not always spend time. There is a difference in deep tech. It takes time, sometimes 10 years, 10 years based on the research. So there are nuances as well. So it’s not there as well, but this is very important part of narrowing the focus in beginning will help you to grow, to go faster, to go faster and to really get the right right customers. And this, it’s very important for the to validate that with few customers, not only one, to really see if it is a scalable solution. So hence, we talking about the depth and breadth of a customer early on. So here we are talking about because sometimes here the risk is of choosing one customer. It’s almost fully designing it for that customer, to the point that is almost only relevant to that customer based on their requirements. So it’s seeing how you could leverage that pilot that you can really also offer to others afterwards, how? So it’s really things are thinking about the pilot in the right way, and here it’s so it’s more about who would be the few clients and how deep you can go. So for the pilots it can help you land in those companies. But afterwards, how you can move from the pilots to the full full projects, which we pay the bigger, bigger school projects. So this is the important I think, in a short period of time, I think that’s the important part of thinking about how you could get this early traction, and the early traction which is scalable. So these are fundamentals of thinking of okay, when you have this in the right way, then you see this breadth and depth of the customers, which you prove the point with, multiple of the customers. Then we got the feedback from the right customers. Helps you to grow faster. Moving on.

Christian Klepp  34:23

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. I love how you also led with, like, narrowing the focus. And I think that’s so important. A lot of these, a lot of startups like you said, like, Okay, this is, this is for, you know, different different verticals, or the, you know, we have customers in different industries, but in the beginning, if you, if you have that mindset, and you approach the market that way, and I think you brought it up earlier on in the conversation, you start to spread yourself so thin. And a lot of these startups don’t have 500 employees, right? So, you know, it’s a handful of people, if they’re, if there’s 10 people in the startup, that’s already like, wow, I. Right? But there’s, there’s only a few people, and especially there’s only a few people responsible for business, right, and client acquisition. So if you start already in the beginning, spreading them so thin, how are you ever going to scale, right? Yeah, okay, fantastic. But okay, so maybe this is a question that you probably know the answer to. But I think it’s really important to put it into context, because when you say, narrow the focus, how do you get startups to narrow the focus, especially when they say, well, we built this tool, and it’s for different industries. How do you get them and especially because there’s a lot of people on LinkedIn saying, oh, narrowing the focus. That’s, that’s lazy advice. I disagree with that, by the way, but, um, but how do you get them to narrow the focus? How do you get them to just zero in on one particular vertical.

Adrijana Daragon  35:52

So here, I can give a few examples. I think it is here. It’s really depends on, on, also the industry. How narrow is the narrow?

Christian Klepp  36:03

Absolutely.

Adrijana Daragon  36:04

So typically, my advice would be, you think that you are narrow, go even further.

Christian Klepp  36:09

Okay.

Adrijana Daragon  36:10

Go fever further, because it’s not only the big industries, but who are within the industries. And specifically, if you are saying, let’s say it’s technology solution. Technology solution of improving the productivity. And you care for enterprises. That’s typically a lot of enterprises, but if you choose one specific industry, saying these are the typically processes they have to improve, okay? But then there are a lot of teams, and within the teams, there are also the hierarchy, so understanding really more specific use cases. So that’s the typical way of thinking about where are the few use cases where you could really solve really well, and sometimes they come as exactly because you had the access to the market you can really have it’s easier for you. It’s more accessible, accessible one. But it’s also looking if it is, can be repeatable, repeatable, that there are various potential as well, moving forward, moving forward, forward. So there it’s, it’s, I think people are very scared, and other founders I work with of being too narrow, too narrow, but exactly as we talk about, it’s very small team. It’s better to have 10 earlier, like pilots, but it’s really been closed and you have strong learnings versus 100 of nice to have conversations and maybe few, but never really even have use cases closed in the multiple, multiple areas. This is where, like it happens that that going narrow. It really helps. And in in some very niche already, solutions like robotics, for the specific area, it takes really time as well to solve any problem, learn really depth about the customer. So you cannot spread yourself too thin on many, customers there. So the time in deep tech it takes to solve the problem, this is the especially I recommend in deep tech, very specific area to get the traction it’s really important to get it’s a narrow one, because this is where you invested a lot in the research a young competitive also differentiation on what’s the technology so it’s better solving really, truly well for amount of customers, and that’s really the build up, versus of going broad and losing this even the trust and credibility in the market.

Christian Klepp  38:59

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, as you were explaining this, which I think you explained really well, it almost sounds like you have to get them to conduct an experiment. You remember, back in the school days, we were conducting experiments, and then we have to record the results, right? And then, okay, what worked, what didn’t work? Okay, what worked, scale, what didn’t work, stop, right? Or, or pivot, yeah, change the approach, right? We have to find out why didn’t it work? Right? What were the reasons? What was the feedback? Right? So it’s almost like, it’s almost like you have to have this experimental slash growth mindset.

Adrijana Daragon  39:36

Yes, yes. That’s very important. I think it’s this growth mindset. It’s really there you are. It’s continuous iteration and learning. It’s learning as well. It’s also about asking the questions, being in the asking the questions, having a not this paralysis of no action. So you need to have the action for your actions, but the also thinking about, what is it behind? What would really we need to do to make this pilot successful? What, and also, when you are talking with a customer early on, on the pilot, super important is to ask, what needs to happen in this pilot. What are the success criteria for us to move from the pilot to the full project afterwards. So that’s the one like it helps tech as well to structure this experiments in the right way, in the right way, versus just when you are spreading to fin, you almost show the demo. Demos, give the solution, and then leaving the customer almost alone. So you didn’t give full, full effort in those pilots as well to get the right even the data behind.

Christian Klepp  40:51

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Adrijana, this was such a great conversation, and you know, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. So please give us a quick introduction and how people out there can get in touch with you, especially if they’re in the B2B Tech or health startup space in Switzerland and Europe.

Adrijana Daragon  41:11

Yes, sure. So I am go to market advisor and fractional CMO, or Chief Revenue Officer for B2B tech companies. I’m based in Switzerland. I operate with many European and also US companies who typically are still at the stage of founder led sales and marketing activities. And I support them, moving from heavy activity random sales to repeatable way of winning deals. And my company is called go to market advantage. So go to gtmadvantage.ch you can find also resources there as quick diagnostic tool as well. So it’s a three five minutes tool for them as well to get some of the low hanging fruits, what typically go to market challenges they have, and it gives them as well, some advice. And I’m happy to also, yes, share more of the discovery calls.

Christian Klepp  42:22

Fantastic, fantastic, and we’ll be sure to put a link in the show notes when this episode comes out. So once again. Adrijana, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon.

Adrijana Daragon  42:32

Thank you.