Slack, Dropbox or Zoom have applied specific strategies to win customers – tactics that resemble those of consumer companies rather than enterprise firms.

The go-to-market playbook for early-stage B2B founders:

• Taking a consumer approach to enterprise
• Product positioning through category-creation
• Generating repeatable and non-associated revenue (e.g. “crossing the penny gap”)
• Building a strong sales organization

Don’t compete head on with a category leading incumbent, create your own category. Category creation and becoming a “category king” allows new companies to bypass rivals and build in an uncontested space.

“The one who defines the category, wins the category. No one cares about your features. You have to talk about the larger problem that you're solving and how the world will be different if what you're doing works. Explain the change that you're bringing about in the world and why that's important.” This can be done through content, PR or community.