Bottoms Up B2B Software

Before, B2B software was stereotyped as clunky and unintuitive. Since B2B software was sold top down, where the decision makers are different from the end users, this meant that the incentives weren’t necessary aligned.

Nowadays, B2B software is evolving. For one, many end users of B2B software use applications with great user experiences on their phone and computer like Instagram and Spotify. Great user experiences are normalized, and users expect more. Now, companies learned that user experience is a competitive advantage.

However, I also noticed that some B2B software stands out from the rest in terms of their user experience like Slack, Dropbox, and Intercom. These products are so good that I sometimes forget they’re primarily B2B applications. These products all have a bottoms-up go-to-market strategy. For example, Slack has a free version aimed at consumers. When consumers use Slack for student clubs or for their engineering team at work, they introduce Slack to their companies or colleagues. This bottoms up strategy means that the end users are the decision makers kind of like B2C software. This approach leads to more product focused rather than sales focused organizations.

October 5, 2021


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