the best software customers are people who have never heard of your product category

been thinking about this a lot lately. everyone in this sub is building tools for developers, marketers, saas founders. basically people who already use 47 tools and will churn the second something shinier shows up.

meanwhile there's a plumber in ohio who runs his whole business off a paper calendar and missed calls. he's not googling "best crm software." he doesn't know what a crm is. but if you show him something that solves his actual problem and just works, he'll pay you monthly forever and never once look at a competitor.

i sell to small service businesses and the retention is wild compared to what i see people posting here. these people don't have time to evaluate 12 alternatives on g2. they don't read product hunt. if your thing works and you pick up the phone when they call, you're set.

the downside is the sales cycle is different. you can't just run google ads and expect signups. you gotta actually talk to people, show up in their world, sometimes literally walk into their shop. it's slower but the customers stick.

idk maybe this only works for my niche. but it feels like there's a massive blind spot for non-tech buyers. everyone wants to sell to people who look like them instead of the millions of business owners who barely use email.