A practical framework for B2B SaaS positioning

Executive overview

Most B2B SaaS companies write positioning that speaks to outcomes rather than workflows — producing vague messaging that doesn't match how buyers actually shop. Anthony Pierri of Fletch argues positioning must answer three questions: who is the product for (defined by workflow, not just firmographics), what is it (product category), and what makes it better (than the competitive alternative).

The homepage is the forcing function: getting a team to agree on these answers and rewriting the hero section pulls the whole company into alignment.

The core insight: buyers refer software by workflow ("do you know a tool for collecting case studies?"), not by outcome ("do you know something to turn customers into sellers?") — so positioning must match how people actually shop.

Redefining the target segment

• Firmographics (company size, industry, revenue) are insufficient as the only segmentation criteria.
• The missing dimension is the specific workflow the buyer is actively doing or needs to do.
• All B2B software is workflow software — segment by the actual activity, not the department.
• A prospect who fits every firmographic but doesn't run the relevant workflow is not in your ICP.
• Workflow specificity test: can two people realistically have a conversation using that workflow as a referral phrase?
• Workflows exist on a spectrum from very broad (doing marketing) to very narrow (collecting customer case studies) — the right level is where your software's value becomes concrete.

The three positioning questions

1. Who is it for? — name the workflow and the role doing it, not just the industry or company size.
2. What is it? — choose a product category; mature categories reduce education burden, emerging ones carry risk but can create new markets.
3. What makes it better? — articulate the improvement over the competitive alternative, not over the category in general.

Competitive alternative as a segmentation lever

• The competitive alternative is often not another software tool — it may be a manual process.
• User Evidence example: their buyers weren't comparing tools; they were manually begging for case studies one by one. Positioning against "other platforms" would have missed the market entirely.
• Defining the competitive alternative forces a decision about which market to enter.
• Different segments have different alternatives — the same product can target early-stage manual users or category-aware switchers, with entirely different messaging for each.

Positioning the homepage as a forcing function

• Strategy decks produced in boardrooms rarely translate into aligned execution across a business.
• Rewriting the hero section to reflect the agreed positioning answer forces the whole team to commit.
• The primary segment should be the one driving the most revenue, most referrals, and clearest self-identification.
• Other segments don't disappear — they move lower on the page or into separate go-to-market tracks.

Common mistakes and sequencing

• Founders targeting 10 workflows simultaneously win none of them — referral and recall require focus.
• The right path is to dominate one segment first, then layer on the next.
• Spotify did music for 10 years before launching podcasts; Amazon sold only books before expanding.
• Venture-backed founders are not exempt — early-stage companies have dominated nothing yet.
• Positioning is a bet made with incomplete information; test it, measure it, and pivot or persevere.