How to deal with losing an early customer? Hey all, By the title you can assume what my issue is. We operate as a SaaS product for small businesses. One of early clients was a salon. The receptionist of the salon really didn't like our product and convinced the owner to drop us. We were only operating for 2 weeks when they decided to pull the plug. I'm wondering how I should take the feedback. The owner told me we were too early stage for them and our business model didn't align with theirs. |
If customers are worth, say, $50 MRR, you really don't have time to worry about fighting for them. There are people in all organizations who are against change, even if the change is easy and helpful.
There are lots of things to learn here, though. Are salons a great target market? If you're operating for 2 weeks, and you're so un-sticky that they can just drop you, are you really providing enough value? If you think you are, why didn't they perceive that value?
Another thing to figure out is whether you really were too early-stage for them. Did it just make them anxious to invest time into a product that might go under? Did they feel they weren't supported well enough, there were too many bugs, or the UX wasn't polished?
If "yes" to any of those, that's fine! Early-stage products aren't for everyone. You'll bump into a lot of those people. Churn can be high early on as long as your acquisition cost isn't killing you. If you're spending hours acquiring and on-boarding a $50 MRR client, your business model probably doesn't work. If each is worth $500 MRR and costs you $1,000 the first month and $50 thereafter, that's a completely different situation.