One of the key questions for every start-up in the B2B space is the go-to-market strategy and the natural initial focus is always on creating a scalable sales and marketing process. How do I create qualified leads at the right costs? How do I move these leads to opportunities and then paying customers? Can I do this with an inbound sales force or do I need to have people on the ground?

While figuring out a scalable maketing and sales approach is important, most start-ups forget that there is the much larger opportunity to have passionate users do the distribution for your company. This usually requires 3 things:

• A simple product that provides value to a single user within a larger organization
• A price point for the product that is low enough that a user would be willing to expense this on his personal credit card (the best scenario would be that the product is free)
• A viral loop built into the product that ideally creates network effects