[timr]

"For those of us not working on cat photo sharing products for the ever shifting consumer market there is considerably less luck, throwing random stuff at the wall, and pivoting involved."

...but how do you know that? The principal disadvantage of B2B is that the long sales cycle greatly increases the time until you get feedback that your product sucks, so you either succeed (in which case, of course, you say "it wasn't luck"), or you fail (in which case, it's attributed to bad luck). Also, even then, it takes a fairly self-aware set of founders to admit that the reason that the product isn't selling is because it sucks, and not because (say) the sales team is bad, or because BigCo isn't buying this quarter, etc.

Say what you will about consumer startups, but the ability to pivot quickly in the face of consumer feedback is a feature, not a bug. You can sort-of get around this by doing a direct-sale B2B service (i.e. what you're doing with justworks), but in that case, you're still a consumer startup -- you're just selling a "professional" product with a niche market.

[wdewind]

> the ability to pivot quickly in the face of consumer feedback is a feature, not a bug.

I couldn't agree more, but I'm not sure you're right about the feedback cycle. We did a ton of "lean startup"-ish stuff including launching minimal products to trusted beta users and expanding based on customer feedback.

But there is exactly a 0% chance that Justworks will ever fundamentally "pivot" to being a different product. The concept that this is even preferable is kind of crazy. A pivot should be a last chance "we got it wrong but we've got some money left so let's try something else" - not a matter of course.

In terms of knowing whether or not the product sucks vs. the sales team sucks, this is, of course, an eternal question in SaaS. Luckily our product is selling, but I would say that regardless trust and high amounts of communication between sales and product development is absolutely key. At any sort of level of maturity this is your prime feedback loop with the customer and we take it very very seriously.

[timr]

"A pivot should be a last chance "we got it wrong but we've got some money left so let's try something else" - not a matter of course."

Eh...perhaps "payroll" is a bad starting point for a pivot, but I think that if your product weren't selling, you'd be more eager to find a related product that did sell. Pivoting isn't a gratuitous thing, but neither is it a complete overhaul of your business model. Hence, the name: you change direction, keeping one foot firmly planted in your current business.

I think the devil is in the details of how you define "pivot" -- done correctly, it's just an intelligent reaction to new information. If you look at it that way, it makes no sense to avoid it.

[ef4]

> The principal disadvantage of B2B is that the long sales cycle greatly increases the time until you get feedback that your product sucks

Waiting to sell until after you've built something is just as foolhardy in B2B as in B2C.

The equivalent winning strategy in B2B is to pitch the idea to the first customers before it's even built. If you can't convince them to commit, you pivot. If you find excited customers, they become your close feedback through the whole dev process.

Atypical early adopters may steer you wrong, but that can happen in the consumer space too.