Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
When I started consulting with B2B SaaS startups, I watched the same tragic pattern repeat itself. Founders would spend months building a perfect product, then throw marketing spaghetti at the wall hoping something would stick. Facebook ads here, LinkedIn outreach there, content marketing everywhere. Sound familiar?
The harsh reality? Most startups fail not because their product sucks, but because they never found their one distribution channel that actually works. They spread themselves too thin across every marketing channel they'd read about, never getting deep enough into any single one to make it profitable.
This is exactly why I became obsessed with the Bullseye Framework - a systematic approach to finding your golden channel instead of playing marketing roulette. Over the past three years working with SaaS startups, I've seen this framework literally save companies from burning through their runway on ineffective marketing.
Here's what you'll learn from my real-world experience:
Why 19 marketing channels failed for my B2B SaaS client (and the 1 that worked)
The counter-intuitive reason you should ignore your competitors' marketing strategies
My step-by-step process for testing channels systematically without burning money
How personal branding on LinkedIn became a 10x better channel than paid ads
The specific metrics I track to know when to double down vs. when to kill a channel
Reality Check
What most founders get wrong about marketing channels
Walk into any startup accelerator demo day, and you'll hear the same recycled advice: "You need to be on every channel where your customers are." Mentors will tell you to diversify your marketing mix, test everything, and scale what works. Sounds logical, right?
Here's the problem with this conventional wisdom:
Resource scatter: Startups spread their limited budget and attention across 5-10 channels simultaneously
Surface-level testing: They spend 2-3 weeks on each channel and call it "tested"
Vanity metrics focus: They optimize for impressions and clicks instead of actual revenue
Competitor copying: They assume what works for Company X will work for them
No systematic approach: They jump from channel to channel based on the latest marketing guru's advice
This advice exists because it feels safe. Diversification reduces risk in investing, so surely it works in marketing too? Wrong. In early-stage companies, diversification is actually the enemy of focus. You end up doing everything mediocrely instead of one thing exceptionally well.
The Bullseye Framework, created by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, flips this approach. Instead of testing everything simultaneously, you systematically work through channels one by one until you find your "traction channel" - the one that can deliver the customers you need at a cost you can afford.
But here's where most people still get it wrong: they treat the Bullseye Framework like a checklist instead of understanding the deeper psychology of why certain channels work for certain businesses. The framework isn't just about testing - it's about finding the channel that aligns with how your specific customers actually discover and evaluate solutions.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Last year, I started working with a B2B SaaS client who was burning through their Series A funding faster than a teenager with a credit card. They had a solid product - a project management tool specifically built for creative agencies - but they were stuck at $15K MRR after 18 months. Not exactly the hockey stick growth investors were expecting.
When I audited their marketing efforts, I found the classic startup mistake: they were active on every channel imaginable. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, content marketing, podcast sponsorships, conference speaking, cold email, influencer partnerships, affiliate marketing, SEO... you name it, they were doing it.
Their founder, Sarah, genuinely believed this was the "right" approach because that's what every growth hacking blog told her. "We need to be everywhere our customers are," she'd say during our calls. The problem? They were nowhere effectively.
Here's what their monthly marketing spending looked like:
Google Ads: $3,000/month with a 1.8 ROAS
LinkedIn Ads: $2,500/month with barely any conversions
Content writer: $2,000/month producing blog posts nobody read
Conference sponsorships: $5,000/quarter with zero trackable leads
Cold email tool subscriptions: $500/month with 0.1% response rates
They were spending over $8,000 monthly on marketing with almost nothing to show for it. Worse yet, their team was constantly context-switching between managing different campaigns, never developing deep expertise in any single channel.
The breaking point came when Sarah told me they had enough runway for maybe 8 more months. That's when I suggested we completely flip the script and implement the Bullseye Framework properly. Instead of doing everything poorly, we'd systematically test channels one by one until we found their golden goose.
Sarah was skeptical. "But what if we miss opportunities in other channels?" she asked. I told her the brutal truth: they were already missing opportunities in every channel because they weren't going deep enough in any of them.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
The first thing I did was force Sarah to pause all marketing activities for two weeks. Yes, all of them. This wasn't about saving money (though that helped) - it was about creating space to think strategically instead of reactively.
During this pause, we mapped out all 19 traction channels from the Bullseye Framework and got brutally honest about which ones made sense for their business. Here's how I structured the systematic testing:
Phase 1: The Brainstorm (Week 1)
I created a simple spreadsheet with all 19 channels and had Sarah's team score each one on three criteria:
Customer fit (1-5): How likely are creative agency owners to discover solutions this way?
Competition level (1-5): How saturated is this channel with competitors?
Internal capability (1-5): How good are we at executing this channel?
Most importantly, I made them eliminate any channel scoring below 10 total points. This immediately killed 12 of the 19 channels, including their expensive conference sponsorships and scattered social media efforts.
Phase 2: The Rapid Tests (Weeks 2-8)
For the remaining 7 channels, we designed rapid, low-cost tests with clear success metrics. Here's the critical insight: each test had to be intensive enough to actually validate the channel. No more surface-level dabbling.
The breakthrough came during week 4 when we tested "personal branding" as a channel. Instead of having the company LinkedIn page post generic industry content, we focused entirely on Sarah's personal profile. I had her document her real experiences building the product, share behind-the-scenes struggles, and offer genuine insights about agency management challenges.
Phase 3: The Unexpected Winner
Within two weeks of Sarah posting consistently on LinkedIn (just 15 minutes per day), something remarkable happened. Agency owners started reaching out directly. Not to schedule demos, but to ask questions about their own project management challenges. Sarah wasn't selling - she was genuinely helping.
Here's what the numbers looked like after 30 days:
Sarah's LinkedIn connections grew from 500 to 2,100
Direct messages from potential customers: 47
Qualified sales conversations: 12
Trials started from LinkedIn conversations: 8
New paying customers: 3 (worth $2,100 MRR)
The cost? Zero dollars. Just 15 minutes per day of authentic engagement.
But here's the real kicker: the quality of leads from Sarah's personal branding was 10x better than anything they'd gotten from paid ads. These weren't cold prospects clicking on ads - these were warm contacts who already knew Sarah's expertise and trusted her opinion.
By month 3, we had completely shifted their strategy. Instead of $8,000/month scattered across multiple channels, we invested everything into scaling personal branding: a content assistant to help Sarah post consistently, a simple CRM to track LinkedIn conversations, and basic automation to nurture warm contacts.
Channel Scoring
Score each channel on customer fit, competition level, and internal capability. Eliminate anything below 10 total points to avoid spreading resources too thin.
Rapid Testing
Design 2-4 week intensive tests for remaining channels. Each test must be deep enough to actually validate potential, not just dabble on the surface.
Personal Brand Power
The founder's personal brand often outperforms company marketing 10:1. People buy from people, especially in B2B SaaS where trust is everything.
Focus Multiplier
Going deep in one channel beats surface-level presence in ten channels. Concentration of effort creates breakthrough momentum.
The transformation happened faster than anyone expected. Within 6 months of implementing the Bullseye Framework, here's what changed:
Revenue Impact:
MRR grew from $15K to $47K (213% increase)
Customer acquisition cost dropped from $2,100 to $150
Marketing spend decreased from $8,000/month to $1,200/month
Lead quality score improved by 300% (measured by trial-to-paid conversion)
Operational Changes:
Sarah's team went from managing 8 different marketing tools to focusing on just 3: LinkedIn, a simple CRM, and basic email automation. The mental bandwidth freed up was incredible - instead of constantly putting out fires across multiple channels, they could actually think strategically about their one effective channel.
The Compound Effect:
Personal branding has this beautiful snowball effect that paid ads don't. Every post Sarah published built on the previous ones. Her audience grew organically through shares and mentions. Industry publications started reaching out for quotes. Speaking opportunities appeared naturally.
By month 6, Sarah was getting invited to podcasts, quoted in industry articles, and recognized at conferences - all because she'd built genuine expertise and authority in her space. This created a moat that competitors couldn't replicate by simply copying her ads.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
The Bullseye Framework taught me some hard lessons that fundamentally changed how I approach marketing strategy:
Distribution beats product - Sarah's product wasn't 10x better than competitors, but her distribution channel was 10x more effective
Systematic beats random - The framework forced discipline that gut-feeling marketing never could
Deep beats wide - One channel done exceptionally well outperformed 8 channels done mediocrely
Authentic beats polished - Sarah's honest posts about startup struggles resonated more than any professionally written company content
Patience beats urgency - Personal branding took 60 days to show results, but created sustainable growth unlike paid ads
People buy from people - B2B decisions are still human decisions, especially for smaller companies
Compound beats linear - Personal brand builds on itself, creating exponential rather than linear growth
The biggest mistake I see founders make is treating the Bullseye Framework like a quick hack rather than a systematic process. They'll test a channel for a week, see no immediate results, and move on. But breakthrough results require going deeper than surface-level testing.
If I could do this project again, I'd spend even more time in the brainstorming phase, really understanding the customer journey before jumping into testing. The more you understand your customer's natural discovery process, the more obvious your best channels become.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS Startups:
Pause all marketing for 2 weeks to design systematic tests
Score channels on customer fit, competition, and capability
Consider founder personal branding as your first channel to test
Track qualified conversations, not just traffic metrics
For your Ecommerce store
For Ecommerce Stores:
Focus on channels where customers actually discover products
Test Instagram/TikTok personal branding for visual products
Prioritize channels with lower competition over obvious ones
Measure lifetime value per channel, not just conversion rates