I made 4 cold calls, then gave up...

Hi indie hackers!

This story is a little embarrassing, but should give you some perspective into building a B2B SaaS (and some entertainment).

For some background, I've been indie hacking (and freelancing) for 6 months now. I've only built consumer-facing products so far because that's what I relate to most.

I've been wanting to try building a B2B product because I hear they're generally easier to grow and generate revenue from.

Last week I got an idea to create a tool that helps coffee shops increase their profit margins. It would track the cost of goods from their supplier and integrate with their POS system to get sales and revenue data. Then it would show how profitable certain items are to help coffee shop owners with product and business decisions.

I decided in order to validate this idea, I would call a few coffee shops and gauge interest before building the product. I compiled a list of 50 coffee shops in Brooklyn to do just that.

My plan was to call each of the coffee shops, try to get the contact info of the owner/manager and pitch my product from there.

Here is my script:

Opener:
“Hi, I’m Alex with BrewBudget. We help coffee shops increase their profit margins. Is the owner or manager in right now?”

If no:
“Do you mind giving me the contact info of the owner or manager?”

If no:
“In that case can you share our website with them? It’s just brewbudget.com”

In case I need it:
“We offer a cost of goods tracking system that lets you record and analyze margins on your products so you can improve them over time.”
“Offer $199 lifetime access”

Now let me just say, I knew cold calling would be difficult for me because I'm an introverted gen-z who doesn't like to make any kind of phone call.

But I wanted to give it a shot to see if I could get any leads. I planned to give up if I made 100 calls and got 0 leads.

Well, I just made 4 calls and I'm already giving up. Not just because the calls weren't effective, but also because it's just too damn awkward.

I feel so bad calling these nice people on the phone, bothering them, shilling my product, and getting rejected.

On my 1st call, it was clear the person didn't want to talk to me, but responded to be nice.

My 2nd call angrily asked me, "Do you know what time it is in NY?" and hung up even though their shop was open according to Google Maps.

The 3rd call ended with the lady taking a message for the owner. I told her to check out my website. Dumb response, I know.

The 4th call told me the owner comes in around 10 or 11 am.

These calls didn't end too badly. But they made me feel bad. I just don't like being a burden on other people and making someone else's day worse.

I'm switching over to writing emails and sending IG messages. Most shops don't have either of these, but I assume I can still send these with higher volume than calling. Hopefully this will give me some data for validating the product idea.

Anyways, that's the story of how I learned I can't be a salesperson.

Have you built a B2B SaaS? How did you get your first customers?