The idea
B2B means selling to businesses. The attraction for a small software team is specific: a narrow workflow with a visible cost can support a meaningful price and a small customer base. That is a business hypothesis to test, not a guarantee that B2B always has better retention or cheaper acquisition than B2C.
What founders found
Alexander Isora argues for narrow business problems and illustrates the competition facing consumer utilities. His 2024 analysis classified 69.8% of 968 selected r/SideProject launches as B2C. It describes that sample, not all makers. Indie Hackers’ account of Paw offers a concrete example of a product moving from individual buyers to teams.
How to use it
Patrick McKenzie’s Stripe guide adds a useful distinction: low-touch and high-touch sales. A self-serve product and a business requiring demos, onboarding and account management need different prices and operating models. Ask who uses the software, who approves it, what workflow it replaces, and whether the deal can cover the selling and support effort.
A working example
An illustrative target is 100 accounts at $100 per month: $10,000 MRR before costs. It is arithmetic, not evidence of market demand. Validate the budget owner, the buying process and the recurring pain before treating that spreadsheet as a plan.
From the people doing it
Sources & further reading
- Alexander Isora: author-published analysis ↗
- Alexander Isora: the case for B2B ↗ — A founder opinion, not an empirical universal rule
- Patrick McKenzie: The SaaS business model ↗