Don't ignore B2B service ideas

There are different kinds of businesses with different target customers. Many people starting out consider only one kind (product) and one target customer (consumers, individuals). This makes sense, as most people starting out are thinking about the kinds of things that they buy, and these are apps or SaaS subscriptions like Spotify.

Selling products to consumers is also the hardest way to make money though. Consumers generally are very tight fisted with money and will spend a lot of time considering a $9 purchase. They are also very fussy about polish and details, and will churn easily.

The easiest way to make money is by being a business that sells services to other businesses. The sales cycle is longer than when selling to consumers (businesses tend to be less fussy and have bigger budgets, but they also have more process, so the time between first contact and getting money in the bank could be a year or more). But you can easily charge $$$$ amounts instead of $ per month.

This is also the easiest way to get to “ramen profitability”, as if you can sell some monthly services that you can do yourself, that might already be enough to cover your rent and food costs.

When you sell products to consumers, marketing is very important. You need to tell people that your product exists and convince them to buy it, often without interacting with them. You need a nice website, maybe some ads. You need a very smooth and well-tested payment process as people who try to pay you and can’t will leave and not come back.

When you sell services to businesses, sales is very important. You probably don’t even need a website. You will make sales through email, calls, or in-person discussion. If there’s a problem with the payment, your customer’s finance department will figure somethign out and try a different method.

This is why B2B services businesses are often not given enough (or any) consideration from entrepreneurs who are getting started. They are often more-or-less invisible unless you are working direclty with them, which is a strong contrast to product businesses where founders are shouting from the rooftops about what they are working on and posting flashy demos.

Here is a table with some examples of three main business types and their target audience. Don’t try to sell to more than audience.

	Consumer	Business	Government
Product	Spotify	HR software	Scheduling software
Service	CV creation	Marketing, Design, Sales	Maintenance
Platform	Uber, Airbnb	Fiverr	Tender evaluation