Who you sell to, and why they care

Pick the customer you can actually win, and say the one thing that makes them lean in.

What founders use for who you sell to, and why they care, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. Accel India's three tests for a segment (uniformity, enough size, reachability at a sane acquisition cost) are the cleanest way... SeedToScale Insights (Accel India) Article · 12 min read Defining Your Market: Choose the right peak before you start climbing the mountain Accel India In 2 answers
  2. The cleanest statement of the boundary you are asking about: positioning is the input, and messaging, taglines and branding are... aprildunford.com Article · 10 min read An Introduction to Positioning April Dunford In 2 answers
  3. Three real startup homepages taken apart, showing the whole chain from positioning statement to messaging to the actual... MKT1 Newsletter Newsletter · 20 min read Positioning & messaging teardown, with Anthony Pierri Emily Kramer and Anthony Pierri In 2 answers
  4. Walks an Indian SaaS team from positioning through story, style guide and proof, with Keka and Chargebee as worked examples... Inc42 Article · 10 min read Indian SaaS Startups' Guide To Brand Marketing Komal Ahuja In 2 answers
  5. The operational half of taking on an incumbent: timing outreach to renewal windows, mining review sites for the buyer's own... MarketBetter Article · 22 min read How to Run a Competitive Displacement Campaign: The Complete Playbook for Winning Deals From Incumbent Vendors MarketBetter Team In 2 answers
  6. A founder writing up her own repositioning in detail, including naming Intercom and Customer.io directly and landing on a... Userlist Article · 16 min read How We Used April Dunford's 10-Step Method to Overhaul Positioning at Userlist Jane Portman In 2 answers
  7. The clearest Indian example of a company outgrowing its own product name and building an umbrella brand over Freshservice,... Forbes India Article · 7 min read Freshdesk rebrands as Freshworks to reflect bigger business management software ambition Harichandan Arakali In 2 answers
  8. Koomen took Optimizely to $100M ARR and breaks the enterprise funnel down for technical founders who find the pitch meeting... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · Talk Enterprise Sales for Founders Pete Koomen
  9. Podcast · ~85 min Building a world-class sales org Jason Lemkin
  10. This is where the SDR and AE split came from, and the summary gives you the whole model without the book. The rule that no AE... Predictable Revenue Article · ~15 min read 15-Minute Summary of Predictable Revenue Aaron Ross
  11. The most systematic treatment of recurring revenue as an engineered system rather than a set of departments, with 250+... Winning by Design Book · 556 pages Revenue Architecture Jacco van der Kooij
  12. A sitting CIO explains how he actually finds and evaluates startup vendors, including that roughly 80% arrive through outbound.... The Neon Show Podcast · 62 min How Startups Can Sell to Big Companies ft. Karthik Chakkarapani, Zuora Siddhartha Ahluwalia
  13. Podcast · ~60 min How Khadim Batti Built Whatfix Into a ~$900 Million Global SaaS Leader Khadim Batti
  14. Podcast · ~60 min GTM Blueprint for Emerging Markets, Sachin Bhatia Exotel, Founder's Deep Dive E23 Sachin Bhatia
  15. The story of an Indian company arriving at a very specific ICP, founder-developers at zero-to-one startups facing a build... SeedToScale (Accel India) Article · ~10 min read How Chargebee Made its First Million Shekhar Kirani
  16. Five GTM bets from an Indian founder who reached $600M+ ARR, including spending $45k early to find which inbound channel would... SaaStr Article · ~10 min read Building A Global SaaS Empire: 5 Bets That Paid Off with Freshworks Founder CEO Girish Mathrubootham Girish Mathrubootham
  17. Splits the ecosystem into India-first companies serving the domestic market and global-first companies exporting, which is... Bessemer Venture Partners Report · Long report The Rise of SaaS in India 2023 Bessemer Venture Partners
  18. Tracks the Indian companies crossing $100M ARR and what changed in their motion to get there, which is the population you are... Bessemer Venture Partners Report · Long report The Rise of Cloud AI in India 2024 Bessemer Venture Partners
  19. Concrete on the mechanics nobody outside India writes about: INR pricing, UPI AutoPay recurring success rates versus... productgrowth.in Article · ~12 min read SaaS Pricing in India: The Rupee vs Dollar Dilemma productgrowth.in
  20. Zoho's answer to the being-from-India question is local teams, local offices and local pricing rather than louder marketing,... diginomica Article · ~10 min read Zoho talks up 'transnational localism' as key to success Chris Middleton
  21. Vembu on why India is Zoho's fastest growing market and could become its largest, which is the strongest available... Forbes India Article · ~12 min read Sridhar Vembu is preparing Zoho for the rise of India Harichandan Arakali
  22. The reference explanation of all eight letters from the people who own the methodology, free to read. Use it as a deal... MEDDICC Article · long read MEDDIC / MEDDPICC Sales Methodology and Process MEDDICC
  23. A seven-step method for building relationships beyond one contact. It is written for new deals but the mechanics are identical... Highspot Article · 11 min read Multithreading in Sales: The B2B Selling Framework Jessica Hitchcock
  24. The five part narrative structure (name the shift, name winners and losers, show the promised land, position capabilities as... Mission.org Essay · 11 min read The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen Andy Raskin

Show the next 24

The questions

Who you sell to 16

Picking a customer worth chasing, and knowing early when a deal is not one.

What is an ICP and how is it different from a persona? People use both words for the same thing. 4 → We have about fifteen customers and they are all different. How do I find an ICP out of that? 4 → How do I qualify a deal properly instead of just hoping the enthusiastic person can buy? 4 → Half my pipeline is outside our ICP because those are the leads that came in. Do I chase them? 5 → How do I get the team to actually use the ICP instead of nodding at a slide and then doing what they want? 4 → All 16 questions in Who you sell to →
Positioning and messaging 16

Making a buyer understand in one sentence why you exist and why you are the one to pick.

What is positioning in plain English, and why does everyone insist we have got it wrong? 3 → How do I write a one-line description of what we do that a normal person actually understands? 4 → Our positioning reads fine on the website but every rep says something different on calls. How do I fix that? 4 → How do I build a sales deck that is not just a tour of our features? 4 → We are changing our positioning. How do I roll it out without breaking the pipeline mid-quarter? 4 → All 16 questions in Positioning and messaging →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →