Disclaimer: solo bootstrapper, currently growing reasonably, but still way below 1M ARR. I did start with a pilot / first customer and then started doing cold outreach, while trying SEO/ads/social without much success for a few years.

I tried combining both product-led and sales-led, and addressing a lot of different kinds of businesses, but this ended up making my go-to-market more complicated and resulted in almost zero sales.

Second half of this year I finally switched it to sales led targeting a very specific niche, and ended up with a very clear and simple offering for a very specific kind of customer.

This feels counterintuitive because you exclude a huge part of your TAM, but it allows you to be the perfect match for a very specific profile.

Instead of getting a lot of leads with a gazillion questions because they don't trust you, they now start thinking about if/how they can afford it after the first online session.

To get the path of the least resistance, you need to address the exact problems of a certain kind of prospect, conveying your value as easy as possible, and making it a no-brainer for them to commit.

But, don't take my word for it, just ask me again by the end of 2023 whether this all worked out of not.

(I did get some very positive feedback from somebody who bootstrapped, scaled up and sold his company, so I do have high hopes/expectations.)

Thanks for this. It seems to be clear enough: if you get in touch with your specific niche customer that matches your product the best, your conversion is sure to increase.

Perhaps since many broader (less niche) bases are covered by the innumerable products out there today, maybe this is a good way to go for solo people.

Looking to pivot to a similar approach, any chance I can reach out to you or follow you on Twitter?

Sure, just send an email to tom at the domain name mentioned in my profile.

Ditto

Like above, send an email to tom at the domain mentioned in my profile.