I think that in every market there is opportunity for a new market entrant and you can get a few customers just by biting at the statistical distribution. Moving from that beachhead will be the real challenge. You might do everything right and still not gain any ground. I don't believe there is a way to predict just how much ground you will gain because the market itself is always moving. So, the only way to find out is to start fighting. A couple of points from personal experience with SaaS:
* Your first customer will not be representative of your future customers. The adoption curve dictates that you have to start with mavericks and early adopters of whom there are few in the world. In the beginning, I tried everything and persevered despite the rate of closing a sale was very low. Physically going door to door, reaching out to people one by one on Twitter and Instagram. People would typically laugh and try to get me out of their business as quickly as possible but at least I got to see how their business operated from the inside and adapted the pitch based on what I learned. Eventually, I honed in on a few things that I should say and minded many things that I had to avoid saying in order to keep the conversation going.
* Word of mouth starts to spread little by little. When you get to this stage, you passed the first stage. At this point, it's time to figure out what exactly people are saying to other people about your product that they like. Then, incorporate this in to your sales pitch and marketing.
* Know your strengths and weaknesses. If you are not strong in one area (e.g. sales) it is not an excuse to wait until someone closes the sale for you. You just have to work harder on it and figure out what you can do better each time. Conversely, if you are great at something, do not be tempted to use that skill to fix every challenge. The old "when you have a hammer everything is a nail". No matter how difficult things get, it's always helpful to go on a walk and figure out if you are assessing each challenge objectively or letting your passion or emotion drive the decision making.
* Fire customers. Raise prices. Customers associate low price with low quality. Ask yourself if that is your business. It may be useful to set a low price early on just to get someone on board but do not linger in that chasm of misery. In the valley of bargain bin hunters you will get some pathologically bad customers who will drag you down with with them. I think that as soon as you reach "word of mouth" you should start to raise prices.
I think these are universally applicable to any market because it's standard "landing on the beach" procedure for a startup. The stage after will depend on how far up the beach you make it.
* Your first customer will not be representative of your future customers. The adoption curve dictates that you have to start with mavericks and early adopters of whom there are few in the world. In the beginning, I tried everything and persevered despite the rate of closing a sale was very low. Physically going door to door, reaching out to people one by one on Twitter and Instagram. People would typically laugh and try to get me out of their business as quickly as possible but at least I got to see how their business operated from the inside and adapted the pitch based on what I learned. Eventually, I honed in on a few things that I should say and minded many things that I had to avoid saying in order to keep the conversation going.
* Word of mouth starts to spread little by little. When you get to this stage, you passed the first stage. At this point, it's time to figure out what exactly people are saying to other people about your product that they like. Then, incorporate this in to your sales pitch and marketing.
* Know your strengths and weaknesses. If you are not strong in one area (e.g. sales) it is not an excuse to wait until someone closes the sale for you. You just have to work harder on it and figure out what you can do better each time. Conversely, if you are great at something, do not be tempted to use that skill to fix every challenge. The old "when you have a hammer everything is a nail". No matter how difficult things get, it's always helpful to go on a walk and figure out if you are assessing each challenge objectively or letting your passion or emotion drive the decision making.
* Fire customers. Raise prices. Customers associate low price with low quality. Ask yourself if that is your business. It may be useful to set a low price early on just to get someone on board but do not linger in that chasm of misery. In the valley of bargain bin hunters you will get some pathologically bad customers who will drag you down with with them. I think that as soon as you reach "word of mouth" you should start to raise prices.
I think these are universally applicable to any market because it's standard "landing on the beach" procedure for a startup. The stage after will depend on how far up the beach you make it.