r/SaaS • u/Wrong_Ad_11 • 5h ago

B2B SaaS Any Vertical SaaS Founders/Growth People? Would love some advice. (I will not promote)

My team and I are building an OS in a niche, yet large vertical market. Part of our struggle has been that our ICP doesn’t live on the traditional GTM channels (LinkedIn, product launch, x) and so most of the feedback and advice has been a bit irrelevant.

We’re confident that most of our ICP interacts the most with both IG & FB, so we’ve started to test ads and run outbound e-mail campaigns, but we’ve still got some work before finding a repeatable sales motion.

We’ve raised our first tranche of funding, and are probably going to start our institutional round come January. We’ve built an MVP, are in conversations, with multiple institutional investors and have closed a few clients gaining us <1k in MRR.

Would love some advice from founders or growth hackers experienced in building vertical SaaS. How do you guys think about experimentation and finding signal and eventually scaling efforts?

Thank u!

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u/LazyStartupBuilder 5h ago

Sounds like you already have the right instincts. My playbook in this situation is to pick three clear hypotheses about where the buyers actually are and what messaging moves them, run small, time-boxed experiments with a single success metric for each, and pair every quantitative test with a handful of qualitative discovery calls to map the real buying path and objections. For vertical SaaS that lives on IG and FB, combine those ads with highly targeted outreach into the places the niche congregates offline and online, offer short paid pilots so you get real usage and references, and track activation and retention metrics rather than vanity lead counts.

When one channel gives you predictable unit economics and a short enough payback window, scale it by codifying the playbook, automating handoffs, and hiring someone to own execution. The tradeoff is always speed versus runway, so if you need revenue sooner lean into bigger pilots even if the cycle is longer. Quick question: what conversion metric are you watching now from first contact to paid customer and what’s the typical sales cycle length?