Article · ~10 min read

The Economic Buyer in B2B Customer Development

Étienne Garbugli · Lean B2B Free Intermediate

If your market is big on paper but nobody is paying, the first thing to check is whether a real budget line for this problem even exists, and who controls it. Garbugli walks through finding the economic buyer, the person who can actually release money, and separating them from users who merely feel the pain. That distinction is often the difference between a market that looks huge and one that will actually pay.

• The person who feels the problem is frequently not the person who owns the budget to fix it.
• Map the buying unit and find who can release money before you conclude the market is real.
• Interest without an identified budget owner usually means there is no budget line yet, which explains why nobody pays.