How to Stop Boiling the Ocean and Get Your First 10 Customers.

The most common failure I see in tech founders, especially from an academic background, is believing their solution is "horizontal." They claim it can serve banking, pharma, logistics, and manufacturing... everyone, all at once. I've been there, and done that. It doesn't work.

This is a strategic error that guarantees failure.

When you try to sell to everyone, you sell to no one. Your marketing message is generic. Your product roadmap is a list of competing features. Your sales team has to learn five different industries. You end up with one client in pharma and one in banking, proving nothing to investors except your inability to focus.

The only way to win is to dominate one, narrow vertical first.

Become the undisputed, default solution for a single, well-defined customer. I recently advised a university spin-off to stop targeting all of Switzerland and focus only on manufacturing SMEs with 200-500 employees.

This focus is your most powerful asset. It allows you to:

• Build a product that perfectly solves one client's specific problem.

• Craft a marketing message that speaks their language.

• Become a "word-of-mouth" success within that single community.

Only after you have 10-15 referenceable clients in that first vertical, and your GTM is a repeatable playbook, should you earn the right to look at the next one.

Your Action Plan:

1. List your three most promising customer verticals.

2. Rank them by (a) the severity of their pain, (b) your access to them, and (c) their ability to pay.

3. Pick one.

4. Commit your entire GTM (product, marketing, sales) to that single vertical for the next 12 months.

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