Article · ~10 min read

How Chargebee stayed focused before expanding customer segments

YourStory Free Intermediate India

Krish Subramanian describes trying to serve all customers early on, losing the specific insight Chargebee was actually built on, and having to deliberately narrow back down to SaaS and SaaS-like businesses before it worked. A rare Indian SaaS founder admitting the broad-first approach failed and specificity fixed it.

  • Trying to serve everyone early diluted the product and the message, growth followed only after narrowing.
  • Staying within one specific customer type (SaaS businesses) built the initial insight and reference base.
  • Broadening to other segments only made sense once the narrow segment was genuinely won.

The question it answers

  1. How specific should my target customer be when I'm just starting?

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