How did you get your first B2B SaaS customer? (6 weeks in, 0 customers, need real advice)
I'm 6 weeks into building CLOBSOW — AI-powered SOW-to-invoice platform for agencies.
37 features shipped. £4/month infrastructure. Live at clobsowagency.co.uk.
Here's what I've tried so far:
✅ LinkedIn posts (5,700 impressions, 1,500 people reached)
✅ LinkedIn comments on agency owner posts (40% convert to connections)
✅ Cold DMs to IT consultancy owners (5% reply rate)
✅ One partnership call (she wanted to sell to me, not buy)
✅ Product Hunt (6 upvotes)
✅ This Indie Hackers post
Result: £0 revenue. 0 sign-ups.
The product works. The landing page has animated demos. The AI SOW Writer genuinely generates a complete SOW in 15 seconds.
But I can't get anyone to TRY it.
My ICP: 5-50 person IT consultancies in the UK who bill hourly and use Word for SOWs.
What worked for YOU when getting your first B2B SaaS customer?
Specifically:
- Did your first customer come from content, cold outreach, or word of mouth?
- How many conversations did it take before someone said yes?
- Did you offer it free first or charge from day one?
Honestly at the point where I'd give it away free for 6 months just to get real usage data.
Appreciate any real advice from people who've been through this.
6 weeks and 0 is brutal but normal for B2B — the first customer rarely comes from a launch post.
What's worked for others at this stage: pick one channel where buyers complain (not builders showcase), find 10 threads with the exact problem language, reply with real help for 2 weeks. No ads, no spray.
What are you selling and where have you tried so far? Happy to be specific if you share the product + one community you think they hang out in.
Thanks Siromi— appreciate the direct advice.
Product: CLOBSOW — AI platform that connects SOW creation → project → timesheets → invoicing → revenue forecasting for agencies. AI writes a complete SOW from a one-line brief in 15 seconds. Live at clobsowagency.co.uk
ICP: 5-50 person IT consultancies and digital agencies in the UK who bill hourly and use Word/Excel for SOWs.
Where I've tried: LinkedIn (5,700 impressions, comments on agency owner posts convert 40% to connections but 0% to trials), cold DMs (5% reply), cold email via Hunter.io (100% open rate on 10 sends, 0 replies yet), Product Hunt (6 upvotes).
Where I think they hang out: LinkedIn is where UK IT consultancy owners post. But I've been broadcasting, not listening. This week I'm switching to pure research calls — 'how do you handle SOWs today?' without pitching.
One community I think fits: LinkedIn comments on posts from people like Robert Craven (Grow Your Digital Agency) — his audience IS agency owners.
Would love your specific take on where to focus.
CLOBSOW is a clear wedge for agencies still on Word/Excel for SOWs.
On your numbers: LinkedIn 40% connect / 0% trial usually means polite connects, not urgent pain in the feed. Hunter 100% open / 0 reply = subject works, body doesn't match how they talk to themselves. Research calls this week is the right move — "how do you handle SOWs today" not pitch.
Separate lane from LinkedIn spray: communities where agency/consulting pain shows up in public. I ran a sample for CLOBSOW — threads where people describe scope chaos, spreadsheet PM, billable-hour hell, nightmare clients (problem language, not "hire my agency"):
https://threadscout-theta.vercel.app/feed/d32c0374-2bdf-4728-a04e-134112836e34
6 threads, each scored + a help-first draft reply (no links). Honest ask: would you actually show up in 1–2 of these, or is Reddit/community still the wrong channel for UK agencies?
If it's useful alongside your research calls, happy to keep a weekly digest running — $19/mo founder intro if it saves hunt time. Refund option for the first month.
Sharp analysis — the LinkedIn/Hunter diagnostic is useful. '100% open / 0 reply = body doesn't match how they talk to themselves' is the kind of feedback I needed. I'll focus on research calls this week to learn their actual language. Appreciate the thread examples — I'll check those Reddit communities manually. Not ready for paid tools at £0 revenue but will keep ThreadScout in mind when volume justifies it
Separate question while you're in that mode: on those calls (before you pitch CLOBSOW), what trips you up most — getting them to open up about how they handle SOWs today, or the moment they push back on budget/fit/process change?
Asking because I've been building something for the live-call moment specifically and trying to figure out if it's just me or common for founders doing their own calls.
Haven't done enough calls yet to answer properly — that's the honest truth. So far it's been more 'getting people to agree to a call' than anything that happens on the call itself. The Ilias call this week is actually a paid consulting gig, not a CLOBSOW discovery call. Once I get through 5-10 proper research calls, I'll have a real answer for you.
That pattern keeps showing up — content builds audience, warm connections build the first customer.
When you say warm connections, was it people who already lived the problem in their job, or one intro from someone who'd felt it firsthand?
Curious because I'm trying to separate "they agree the problem exists" from "they need this now."
Both — but the one that moved was someone who lived it daily. Vaishali (agency execution founder) saw my comment on her post about the brief-to-delivery gap and connected with ME. She didn't 'agree the problem exists' — she was already solving her half of it. The separation you're looking for: people who describe the pain using specific numbers ('we lose 3 hours per SOW') vs people who nod and say 'yeah that's a problem.' The first group buys. The second group likes your LinkedIn post.
that's a really clean filter — "we lose 3 hours per SOW" vs "yeah that's a problem" is exactly the line.
Vaishali sounds like the first type. curious: did she volunteer those numbers unprompted, or did you have to pull them out with a specific question?
i've noticed the nodding group often connects on LinkedIn out of politeness; the number group usually has already tried a workaround (spreadsheet, copy-paste last SOW, etc.) before they ever talk to you.
when you've done 5–10 of these research calls, happy to compare notes on which questions surfaced the numbers fastest — no tool pitch, just pattern-matching.
Totally fair at £0 — research calls first is the right sequence.
If the manual Reddit check ever eats more than ~30 min/day while you're on calls, the feed link still works as a reference. No pitch from my side until you're past first revenue.
Good luck with the SOW calls this week — curious what phrase you hear most often.
Slightly different path, but I'm living your exact question right now, so honest answers over polished ones.
Context: my product ran as an internal tool for years — it ran my own business before I ever thought about users. Turning it outward is recent, and that turn is where your questions live.
Technically "content" — but not the way you're running it. My first user was a warm connection who'd been quietly watching demo posts I shared to my own network, and signed up on his own a couple of weeks after one landed. The same kind of posts aimed at strangers produced impressions and nothing else. The channel mattered less than whether the person already had a reason to trust me.
The count that mattered wasn't conversations-before-yes — it was conversations-before-I-understood-what-people-actually-struggle-with. I thought I knew because I'd had the problem myself. Having the problem turned out to be motivation, not validation.
Not sure I'd give away 6 months free - a free trial should give users enough usage to pull out some insights.
One observation, gently: your list is six broadcast channels and one conversation. You know your ICP precisely — 5-50 person UK IT consultancies, hourly, Word SOWs. Have you asked ten of them how they do SOWs today, without pitching? Not "will you try my tool" — how it works now, what it costs them, what they've tried. Cheapest item on your list.
This is the most useful reply I've gotten anywhere in 6 weeks. Genuinely.
'Six broadcast channels and one conversation' — that's exactly the problem. I've been optimising for impressions when I should have been optimising for conversations.
And you're right about the discovery calls. I've been asking 'will you try my tool?' when I should be asking 'how do you do SOWs today?' No pitch. Just listening.
I'm going to spend next week doing exactly that — 10 conversations with IT consultancy owners where I don't mention my product at all. Just: how does your SOW process work today? What does it cost you? What have you tried?
The 'trust before content' point also landed. My one warm lead who agreed to a call came from a comment on her post — not from any of my 5,700 impressions.
Thank you for taking the time to write this properly. Following your journey.
Glad it landed.
One thing that'll make those 10 calls compound: write down their exact phrases, not summaries. The words they use to describe the SOW mess become your landing page, your subject lines, and the test for whether any feature matters. You'll know it's working when a stranger reads your copy and asks "how did you know that's what I'd say?"
Good luck this week — post back what you hear.
This is exactly what I'll do. Writing down exact phrases, not my interpretation of what they said. If someone says 'I just copy-paste from last year's SOW and change the dates' — that becomes a headline, not 'agencies use manual SOW processes.' Will post back with the raw phrases. Thanks Josh.