The person who uses our product every day is not the person who pays for it. Which one is the ICP?

The clearest explanation of what changes when you deliberately sell to the user and route around the economic buyer, and what it costs you later. Useful because it treats user-led and buyer-led as two different businesses, not two words for the same customer.

Bottom-up SaaS: A Model for Capital-Efficient Growth

From A.Capital by Ramu Arunachalam 15 min read

• The median bottom-up company raised 70 million dollars (36 percent) less than the median top-down one, 122 million against 192 million.
• Median net dollar retention was 135 percent for bottom-up companies versus 119 percent for top-down.
• Median payback period was 17 months, 28 percent better than top-down peers.
• Bottom-up companies traded at roughly twice the market cap (about 7 billion dollars against 3.2 billion).

Names the roles precisely (end user, champion, economic buyer, influencer, veto power, procurement) so you stop calling everyone a decision maker. It is the one page to keep open while you map an account.

The Decision-Making Unit: The Who-is-Who of Your B2B Sales Process

From Disciplined Entrepreneurship (MIT) by Martin Giese and Matthias Hilpert 10 min read

• Bill Aulet's decision-making unit has three primary roles: end user, champion, and primary economic buyer.
• The champion wants the purchase to happen and may or may not be the person who will use the product.
• Beyond the three, map influencers, veto powers, and the purchasing department, each of which can stall a deal.

Dunford's rule that you build for the champion rather than for every persona in the account settles the buyer versus user argument faster than any framework. It also stops teams building four sets of messaging they will never maintain.

A Guide to Positioning with Multiple Products, Segments and Personas

From aprildunford.substack.com by April Dunford 14 min read

• April Dunford's view: multiple target segments rarely need separate positioning, because the differentiated capabilities are the same.
• A single-product company does not need distinct company positioning and product positioning.
• Position for the champion, since the champion is the only person who can make a deal happen while everyone else can kill it.
• The simpler the positioning, the stronger it is and the easier it is for the team to make it real in the market.

Kapil built one of India's few listed SaaS companies, so when he takes apart the myths (Indians will not pay for software, they demand endless customisation, they want enterprise support at SMB prices) he is arguing from a P&L. Essential if you are deciding whether India is a real market for you.

7 Myths About Selling B2B SaaS In India ft Unicommerce Founder Kapil Makhija

On The Neon Show by Siddhartha Ahluwalia with Kapil Makhija 80 min listen