Playbook · B2B SaaS
Growth plan for a pre-revenue B2B SaaS
Ten moves, ranked, for the stretch between a working product and your first ten paying customers.
- 10 ranked moves
- 30-day sequence
- Costs and tools included
Before revenue, almost every growth channel is a distraction. You have no data to optimise, no case studies to point at and no budget to waste. What you do have is time and the ability to talk to people directly — which is exactly what works at this stage and stops working later.
The plan below assumes one or two founders, under £500 a month to spend, and a product that at least one person outside the building has used without help. Work it in order. The first four moves produce conversations; the rest only pay off once those conversations exist.
- — A working product with at least a rough onboarding
- — A clear idea of the job it does, even if the pricing is a guess
- — Founder time available for direct outreach — five hours a week minimum
- — Budget under £500 a month
If you already have paying customers and repeatable signups, skip this and read the early-traction plan instead — the moves here are deliberately manual and will hold you back once volume matters.
The moves
Ranked, highest return first.
Work down the list. Each one names the first step so there's nothing to plan.
- 01
Founder-led outreach to 100 named accounts
Nothing else tells you as quickly whether the pitch lands. Twenty replies teaches you more than a month of analytics.
First step: Write down 100 companies that fit by name, not by filter. Find one human at each. Send a five-line note asking about the problem, not the product.
- Tools
- Apollo or Clay for contacts, Instantly or Smartlead for sending
- Effort
- 6–8 hours in week one, then 2 hours a week
- Cost
- £0–£80 a month
- 02
Answer the question your product solves, in public
The people searching for a fix already have the problem. Answering them where they ask puts you in front of buyers at the exact moment of intent.
First step: Find ten threads on Reddit, Stack Overflow or a niche forum from the last 90 days. Write a genuinely useful answer on each. Mention the product only if it's the honest answer.
- Tools
- F5Bot or Syften for alerts
- Effort
- 3 hours a week
- Cost
- £0–£15 a month
- 03
One comparison page against the tool people already use
Search traffic for '[incumbent] alternative' is small but converts better than anything else you can publish this early.
First step: Pick the tool prospects mention most in calls. Write an honest side-by-side, including where the incumbent is better. Link it from your nav.
- Tools
- Your own site
- Effort
- One day
- Cost
- £0
- 04
Warm intros from your last three jobs
The fastest route to a first customer is someone who already trusts you. Most founders under-ask here because it feels awkward.
First step: List 30 former colleagues. Send each a specific ask: 'do you know anyone doing X at a company of Y size?' Never a generic 'any intros?'
- Tools
- LinkedIn, your inbox
- Effort
- 2 hours
- Cost
- £0
- 05
Build in public with real numbers
Progress posts with actual figures get shared. Vague progress posts don't. It compounds slowly, so start before you need it.
First step: Post one thing a week on X or LinkedIn: a number, what caused it and what you're changing. Ten weeks minimum before you judge it.
- Tools
- Typefully or Buffer
- Effort
- 1 hour a week
- Cost
- £0–£12 a month
- 06
Get listed everywhere buyers browse
Directories are unglamorous and take an afternoon. They also send small amounts of very qualified traffic for years.
First step: Submit to the 15 directories your category actually uses — G2, Capterra, Product Hunt's upcoming board, plus niche ones your competitors are on.
- Tools
- A spreadsheet
- Effort
- One afternoon
- Cost
- £0
- 07
A single lead magnet that does part of the job for free
A template or calculator that solves 10% of the problem earns the email address that outreach can't.
First step: Take the spreadsheet or checklist you already send prospects and put it behind an email form.
- Tools
- Your site plus Resend or Loops
- Effort
- 2 days
- Cost
- £0–£20 a month
- 08
Onboarding email sequence, five messages
Most early signups stall at the same step. Five emails that walk them past it usually lift activation more than any acquisition work.
First step: Watch three session recordings. Find the step where people stop. Write one email about that step and send it 24 hours after signup.
- Tools
- Loops, Customer.io or Resend
- Effort
- 1 day
- Cost
- £0–£40 a month
- 09
Ask every signup one question
'What made you look for this today?' answered by 20 people gives you your positioning, your ad copy and your homepage headline.
First step: Add the question to the last onboarding screen and to the welcome email. Read every answer yourself.
- Tools
- A form field
- Effort
- 1 hour
- Cost
- £0
- 10
Launch on Product Hunt once you have ten users
Launching early wastes the one shot. Launching with ten happy users gets you comments, screenshots and a badge that helps for years.
First step: Line up the launch for a Tuesday. Tell your ten users a week ahead. Prepare the first comment yourself.
- Tools
- Product Hunt
- Effort
- 3 days of prep
- Cost
- £0
Sequence
What to do first, week by week.
Conversations
Build the 100-account list, send the first 40 notes, ask for warm intros. Nothing else. The goal is fifteen replies, not fifteen customers.
Be findable
Ship the comparison page, submit to directories, set up mention alerts and answer the first ten threads.
Keep the ones who arrive
Write the five onboarding emails, add the one-question survey, watch session recordings and fix the worst step.
Compound
Publish the lead magnet, start the weekly public post, review what produced replies and drop whatever produced none.
Avoid
Where this usually goes wrong.
Running paid ads before the pitch is proven
Paid traffic buys you volume against a message you haven't tested. At pre-revenue you cannot tell whether a bad result is the channel or the copy. Prove the message in conversations first, then buy more of the same.
Publishing twenty blog posts nobody searches for
Content works, but it takes six to nine months and needs a site with some authority behind it. One comparison page beats twenty thin posts at this stage.
Hiring an agency to do outreach
Early outreach is research. If someone else runs it, you get meetings but not the pattern in the objections — and the pattern is the point.
Treating a slow week as a failed channel
Outreach and community answers have a lag of two to four weeks. Judge a channel after 30 days of consistent effort, not after five days.
Questions
Common questions.
How many customers should I expect in the first 30 days?
One to five is normal from 100 well-chosen outreach contacts plus warm intros. If you get zero replies from 100 notes, the list is wrong or the message is about you rather than their problem.
Should I charge before the product is finished?
Yes. A £50 invoice tells you more about demand than 500 signups. Discount heavily for early customers if you need to, but take money.
What if I have no network to ask for intros?
Then weight your time towards public answers and outreach. Both work without a network, they just take longer — expect six to eight weeks before the first steady replies.
Is SEO worth starting now?
Only the comparison page and your homepage. Broad content marketing before revenue burns months you need for conversations.
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