Learn to build products businesses buy. Follow the process thousands of entrepreneurs use to get from idea to product-market fit in B2B.
“What if we launch our product & businesses don't buy?”
Most of us, when we want to start a business, we start at the beginning with the most obvious ingredient: the product.
Because when you can create, the act of creating feels most natural and straightforward.
But it makes it so easy to end up with a product businesses don't need.
And isn't that every new entrepreneur's worst nightmare? Spending months building a product, and nobody cares.
Failure. Not even dramatic failure — just indifference.
A product businesses don't buy and don't use.
Now, let's consider the alternative...
What if you knew that businesses would use and purchase your product at launch, on day one?
If you knew exactly what business customers wanted, you could simply show them how to get it.
You could stop worrying, “Will they buy?” because you'd know they would.
You could stop wondering, "What if they don't use it?" because you made it just for them.
You could start growing your business knowing you're building on solid ground.
You could start growing sales from day one.
Imagine never worrying and wondering "will businesses buy this thing we built?"
What if it was more than possible....what if it was also scalable?
How can you create predictable, scalable sales?
When you start out by just building a product, the best you can do is hope that business stakeholders will want it enough to whip out their wallets and buy.
But the goal of a business isn't just to make products.
Your business will never grow if all you do is build things.
You can't sell business products unless you have people who want to buy.
Customers.
Customers are the pivotal ingredient in success. The one thing you cannot succeed without.
So, if you want to get businesses to buy, you must start with the customer.
Figure out what they need. And what they want. And what they're willing to buy — to pay for.
Then figure out a way you can give it to them.
When you learn what business customers need, want, and are willing to buy, you also learn…
- ...what content will attract them.
- ...who has influence over them.
- ...what you can do to earn their trust.
- ...what price will seem fair — or like a steal.
- ...what the buying process will be like.
- ...and what sales copy will open their wallets.
When you start with the customer, everything becomes clear. It gets a whole lot easier to scale the business.
You can redirect the energy you would normally put into stressing out 😫, into making a plan, executing that plan, and getting things done.
Learn how to to build products businesses buy by joining The Lean B2B Masterclass.
When you enroll in The Lean B2B Masterclass, here's exactly what you'll do:
- You'll learn to assess the market potential of business ideas to find the right opportunity for your team
- You'll find early users within businesses, quickly establish credibility, and convince business stakeholders to work with you
- You'll find and prioritize business problems in corporations, and identify the stakeholders with the power to influence a purchase decision
- You'll create a minimum viable product and a compelling offer, validate a solution, and evaluate whether your team has found product-market fit
- Along the way, you'll learn to identify and avoid common challenges faced by entrepreneurs and learn techniques to speed up product-market validation, and manage your time-to-product-market-fit
The Lean B2B Masterclass consolidates the best thinking around business-to-business customer development. The methodology you'll learn has been developed over 7+ years and combines insights from hundreds of successful B2B entrepreneurs.
If you use the process, the process works.
Yes, process — it's not the sexiest word, but the right process will help you conquer your fears, get you out of your own way, and do the most valuable work of your life .
The Lean B2B Masterclass will show you exactly what to do, when, and most importantly, how! Instead of flailing around trying random things, you'll be able to follow a clear path. And, with our live Q&As, you won't be on that path alone.
You could start testing with business users within a week...
When you enroll in the masterclass, you get instant access to:
- 33+ action-packed lessons: step-by-step exercises, and tutorials.
- Fill-in-the-blank templates, scripts, task lists, hundreds of useful B2B resources, and bonus lessons.
- Access to live Q&A sessions to ask questions, get feedback, and exchange with other students.
- And free updates to course material as I make The Lean B2B Masterclass better and better!
"The Lean B2B course addresses the nitty gritty of where to find interviewees, how to approach them, how to prepare, the interview context, how to get the info you need, and the follow-up. It also talks to the feelings that you may be experiencing and how to overcome them.
It's clear that the instructor has lots of practical experience."
Rita Baker, Business Transformation Coach
Lean B2B Alumni Success Stories
- How Loopio Grew from 0 to 300 Customers by Focusing on Relationships
- How Cobrainer Used Consulting to Bootstrap and Validate an Enterprise Product
- How Jupl Creates Better Healthcare by Building Products for their Customers’ End Users
- How Flutura Built a Painkiller Product By Fully Immersing in The Energy Industry
Here's exactly what you'll learn…
The entire masterclass curriculum is designed for action, to help you get positively addicted to success, and to do it one tiny win at a time. Our video lessons are carefully edited to be brief, bite-sized chunks (generally between 7 and 15 minutes each), and organized to give you results fast.
The course contains everything you need to reach product-market fit in B2B.
Here's how the lessons are organized, across the five sections:
Section 1: The B2B Opportunity & Setting Yourself Up for Success
In the first section, we'll talk about B2B product opportunities. We'll also make sure that your business is set up for success.
By the end of Section 1, you'll have:
By the end of Section 1, you'll have:
- A clear understanding of the differences between selling to businesses and selling to consumers
- An idea of what the best setup is for your team (full-time, part-time, self-funded, etc)
- A clear idea of the time you'll need to reach product-market fit
Section 2: Evaluating Markets & Finding Early Adopters
In section 2, we'll look at different ways to generate business ideas, and evaluate markets. We'll also start recruiting early adopters.
By the end of Section 2, you'll have:
By the end of Section 2, you'll have:
- A clear idea of what market your business should be going in
- An idea of how to position yourself to gain maximum credibility with prospects
- The ability to find early adopters, recognize their behaviors, and recruit them for interviews
Section 3: Finding the Pains of Buyers
In the third section, we'll start drafting interview scripts, conducting interviews, and finding business problems worth solving.
By the end of section 3, you'll have:
By the end of section 3, you'll have:
- A clear idea of the types of questions you can ask to learn from business stakeholders
- A system to turn interview data into actionable insights
- Mastered the art of interviewing customers, and got over any fears you might have had in getting started
Section 4: Defining a Product & Validating it With Customers
In section 4, we'll define a minimum viable product to start validating our solution. We'll also learn how to pre-sell a product and conduct solution interviews.
By the end of section 4, you'll have:
By the end of section 4, you'll have:
- A system to define the scope of your early minimum viable products
- An offer to validate your solution with business stakeholders via pre-selling
- Ways to evaluate whether or not you've found product-market fit, and what to do if you didn't find p-m fit
Section 5: Speeding Things Up & Overcoming Common Challenges
Section 5 is about learning how to recognize the common challenges B2B innovators face, and identifying ways to speed up product-market validation.
By the end of section 5, you'll have:
By the end of section 5, you'll have:
- A set of strategies you can start using today to speed up customer validation
- Ways to quickly identify stalling techniques and other problems with your product-market validation processes
The Lean B2B Guarantee: My promise to you.
I care more about my students' success than taking their money. Easy to say, but I actively turn away students who have to borrow money to take the course, students with unreasonable expectations for their financial success, students not equipped to make a product, and students who don't seem willing to do the slow work of building a business incrementally.
I'm honest about the level of effort, skills, and other ingredients required. The Lean B2B Masterclass is not for entrepreneurs hoping to quickly get validation out of the way. Product-market validation is a time-consuming process that startups are ill-advised to neglect. Successful product-market validation takes time, energy and hard work. The Lean B2B Masterclass is not a magic solution.
I expect you to be honest about your best effort to apply the process that you learn. This is not a get rich quick program, or a startup lottery. Following The Lean B2B Masteclass process takes time, and effort… but it does work. Your wins might seem small at first, but if you keep going, they'll become bigger.
If you take the small, unsexy steps: if you follow the steps to do customer discovery, analyze and review the results; if you ship minimum viable products that help business customers; if you practice your interviewing skills and still don't feel like you're making progress 30 days after you begin doing the work, I will work with you to identify what's missing. And if that doesn't work, I'll give you a full refund.
Your Instructor
Étienne Garbugli works at the intersection of Technology, Product Design and Marketing. He's a 3-time startup founder (Flagback, HireVoice and Highlights), the author of Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want, and a recognized UX research expert.
Over the last ten years, he has validated no less than 25 businesses for clients and personal projects, met hundreds of entrepreneurs, ran countless tests, and tried all existing methodologies to learn how to cheaply validate business ideas.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Lean B2B Masterclass right for me?
Most of the time, if you're asking this question you're really asking one of the following:
- Will it work for my existing idea/product?
- Will it work for my audience?
- Will it work for me, personally?
The Lean B2B methodology was successfully leveraged to bring new products to market by startups, in-house product teams, intrapreneurs, accelerators, incubators, educators, and service companies.
Although it was created with web, desktop and mobile products in mind, the key concepts should resonate with entrepreneurs trying to get any kind of technology or service adopted by businesses.
The start points may vary, but it is possible to use the course to validate/iterate an idea, a concept, or a full product already well positioned on the market.
Although it was created with web, desktop and mobile products in mind, the key concepts should resonate with entrepreneurs trying to get any kind of technology or service adopted by businesses.
The start points may vary, but it is possible to use the course to validate/iterate an idea, a concept, or a full product already well positioned on the market.
If you're still unsure, please email me at etienne@leanb2bbook.com before buying!
What happens after I buy?
When you log in for the first time, you'll get access to all 33 lessons, the templates, task lists, and the bonuses. You'll be able to hit the ground running right there.
Within the first few days, you'll get an invite to the next live office hour, during which you'll be able to get answers to any questions you have while getting started.
If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to reach out to etienne@leanb2bbook.com.
Within the first few days, you'll get an invite to the next live office hour, during which you'll be able to get answers to any questions you have while getting started.
If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to reach out to etienne@leanb2bbook.com.
Will you be available if I get stuck?
My priority is for you to succeed, so when you have specific questions about understanding and applying what you're learning, I'll absolutely do my best to help.
But to keep expectations clear, enrolling in The Lean B2B Masterclass doesn't turn me into your private 24/7 business coach. If you email me for help, I ask that you're respectful of my time and more importantly, that you're following the course lessons, and doing the work.
Can The Lean B2B Masterclass help me validate my existing idea?
Definitely! The course will help you flesh out your hypotheses, find early adopters for interviews, and come up with the right script to truly learn from prospects.
From there, you'll be able to uncover business problems, opportunities, and validate that business stakeholders are willing to pay for your product.
If they're not, you'll have a clear path to improving your product.
From there, you'll be able to uncover business problems, opportunities, and validate that business stakeholders are willing to pay for your product.
If they're not, you'll have a clear path to improving your product.
Okay… can I learn how to make more sales with my existing product?
If you already have a product that's already making sales, the techniques will help you make more sales and grow your product further, by understanding your customers even better, and marketing and selling more effectively.
Read more here on how that could work for you or email me at etienne@leanb2bbook.com with more details about your existing product business if you're not sure.
Read more here on how that could work for you or email me at etienne@leanb2bbook.com with more details about your existing product business if you're not sure.
Are there support channel for The Lean B2B Masterclass?
Yes! You'll get access to our monthly live Q&A sessions.
These sessions will allow you to connect with other students, get feedback on your business progress, or just get answers on your most pressing business challenges.
These sessions will allow you to connect with other students, get feedback on your business progress, or just get answers on your most pressing business challenges.
I’m NOT technical. Will The Lean B2B Masterclass work for me?
It should! You don't need to be a designer, a developer, or a product manager to successfully use the concepts I teach in The Lean B2B Masterclass. You don't need to have technical or programming skills.
If you're not technical, bring your technical partners along. The more ears to the ground, the better it will be for your product-market validation.
What if I'm based outside of North America? Will the lessons still work if I'm based in a different country?
You won't find any US/Canada-centric concepts in the course. All of the customer development work you'll be doing can be done from anywhere, on audiences from anywhere.
I have success stories from all over the place. The Lean B2B Masterclass has students in 60+ countries.
To further help international students, I'm in the process of adding new content specifically relating to building credibility with prospects and conducting interviews from abroad at a distance.
And since The Lean B2B Masterclass is something you can complete on your own time, you don't have to worry about time zones.
If you're concerned about language issues—specific to the course or the exercises—or if you're still not sure if The Lean B2B Masterclass is for you, email me at etienne@leanb2bbook.com!
How long will the course material be available?
Forever. :-) Once you're enrolled, you'll have continued access to The Lean B2B Masterclass video lessons, the worksheets, the templates, and the bonuses.
How soon will I be able to launch my product?
The timeline is entirely dependent on your ability to learn from your target market.
If you're motivated and focused on your audience, it's entirely possible for you to get results fast. Your results are entirely based on the work you put in: doing customer interviews, shipping MVPs, and pre-selling your product to business customers.
How much time will I need to dedicate to this course?
Naturally, the more time you invest, the more and better results you'll get in less time.
Reaching product-market fit in B2B can take anywhere between 2 months and 2 years. However, you should be able to start making sales much sooner than that if you use the Lean B2B methodology.
I still have questions!
I should be able to answer any questions you have. Just drop me an email at etienne@leanb2bbook.com.
35 videos
13 files
11 text files
Course Curriculum
Section 1: The B2B Opportunity & Setting Yourself Up for Success
Section 2: Evaluating Markets & Finding Early Adopters
Section 3: Finding the Pains of Business Buyers
Section 4: Defining a Product & Validating it With Customers
Section 5: Speeding Things Up & Overcoming Common Challenges
Conclusion
The Lean B2B Book
Exercise Templates
Bonuses
Contacts & Links