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Ask HN: Possible to do B2B startup without accelerator or VC?

7 points by naivesales ↗ HN
Is it possible to sell in B2B space without accelerator or VCs? My understanding is that accelerator like YC provide network advantages. Your initial liftoff which is hardest is already ready to buy.

Can you share strategies for AI (read: building and tuning models) startup to sell to B2B space?

Any descent size (50 or more) does not respond and large ones are out of question.

How to gain traction without talking to enough users and when they don’t respond?

Does SEO and Ads work better?

11 comments

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verdverm
Yes, I worked with one that was doing millions in ARR

Also, a post a few minutes before yours is a bootstrapped B2B company, Zulip an open core Slack alternative

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38659529

> Can you share strategies for AI (read: building and tuning models) startup to sell to B2B space?

This space is in hyper-hype mode right now. There are 100s if not 1000s of companies trying to do the same thing you are right now. Open source dominates the space outside of the big players like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. It's going to be really hard to differentiate, and no one knows where they will find applications with an ROI

flarion
> It's going to be really hard to differentiate.

True but that’s from a tech angle, right?

I mean - it all depends how big you want to build (what if you do a single feature very good) + you tailor your operation for a niche group of customers based on your first wave of initial POCs/pilots. You can run a great solo business with 10-20 customers.

Walk down the street and knock on local businesses doors. Ask for tech problems. Each one has a few. Ask if they would pay for it. Define for yourself if that income would justify your time/ambition/purpose. AI is hyper-hype but none of BigTech knows how to sell it and purely focus on large enterprises w a mix of fomo/experimentation.

> and no one knows where they will find applications with an ROI

This. Whoever doesn’t respond to OP’s outreach - the problem defined is not big enough or not known yet.

Cyphase
Zulip is fully open source, not open core.
andy99
SEO and ads are useless. It's all relationship based. VC is just one example of how to build relationships. Ideally it's based on your network, and if you have no network in the area that you're building, question why you are building in that area.

That said, there are often startup incubator type organizations that will have companies approach them looking for innovative startups. Usually on very bad terms though.

Better, do some networking and find companies that have people who scout startups with new technologies, they exist.

If you're talking about building AI models for companies, that's consulting, it's not a product, and it will require even deeper relationships as you will have to explain to the company why they would want to do it in the first place and have them listen. (I have done this, it's entirely relationship based)

codegeek
Sorry what ? Plenty of B2B SAAS companies are running with SEO and Ads. I run one myself. They are not useless but there is a lot of noise and you have to have quality to get eyeballs. But SEO works. Ads work. Trust me.
codegeek
First, SEO and Ads (no matter how much ppl hate them) work, even in B2B. Yes, it is lot harder nowadays to compete but it is still possible.

Second, you don't need an accelerator for network advantages. You need to learn how to sell. You can do B2B without YC. Plenty of B2B SAAS companies doing it. YC is great if you can do it but don't depend on them for customers and leads.

AI, I have no idea except that it is very hyped right now. So I can't comment much on it unfortunately.

Source: I run a bootstrapped B2B SAAS doing low 7 figures in ARR. Most of our revenue is generated inbound through organic SEO and very little with PPC/Ads (looking to invest more in it as we now have better PMF)

flarion
Ads/SEO in B2B are after PMF unless your core audience are devs and its needs bottom-up adoption/awareness - or if its O/S (i.e. Elastic).

> How to gain traction without talking to enough users

You either code or talk to customers (interview/define problem/pitch/close) in early stage. If you do outbound mails 70% of your message should be about them/their problem. Go to meetups, go to industry events etc.

Setup an advisory board w/o giving away equity. Folks w industry expertise and the network.

my2cts. have fun. learn. fail.

repeat.

flappyeagle
The best strategy I have seen is to clone a cloud product and offer an on prem/private cloud version.

The market is already established plus you don’t need to demonstrate value. The only thing you need to do is make it compatible with corporate IT policy

Zulip, mattermost, outline wiki all follow this pattern

snowmonk
SEO works for sure in the B2B space. You can create a landing page where you compare two brands brand1 vs brand2. Within this page, you will need to explain to users why your product is better than product2/brand2.