How do you sell an early-stage SaaS product against mature competitors?
I’m looking for some honest advice from people who’ve been through this.
I recently joined a fintech SaaS company, and our product is still quite new compared to competitors that have been in the market for years.
One thing I’ve noticed is that while I genuinely think we have a better UI/UX and a more modern platform, customers seem to care much more about functionality. They compare feature lists, and we’re simply not at the same level yet.
We also don’t have many success stories because our customer base is still small. Even with existing customers, we’re still fixing bugs and improving the product. Sometimes I don’t even feel confident giving a demo because I know certain areas still need work. It feels like I’m selling the product’s potential more than what it can do today.
To make things harder, my company has a strong compliance and governance process, so I can’t promise features or share an unofficial roadmap just to close a deal. If it’s not committed, I won’t tell customers it’s coming.
For those who’ve sold or built an early-stage B2B SaaS product:
How did you compete against more established competitors?
How did you build trust without many customer success stories?
How did you stay confident when the product still had obvious gaps?
Is this just a normal phase of an early SaaS company, or is it a sign the product isn’t ready to sell?
I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences. Thanks!