The B2B SaaS marketing playbook that takes you from no customers to repeatable pipeline
You built the product, and you know the industry it serves. Getting strangers to find it, understand it, and buy it is a different discipline, and most founders were never taught it.
This playbook is a full course in B2B SaaS marketing for founders doing it for the first time: what to build, in what order, and how to know it's working. Read it start to finish, or jump straight to the problem in front of you.
Let me walk you through it
I'll send you a new lesson every week. Each one takes a real marketing problem and shows you exactly how to fix it.
Read it in order
The modules run in the order I'd actually do the work. Start at module 1 and go straight down the list.
Or jump to your problem
You can also start with whatever module covers what's broken. Every lesson stands on its own.
Still being written
Lessons marked coming soon aren't out yet. Sign up above and I'll email you each one the day it's published.
The playbook
Eight modules, from positioning to hiring help
Module 1
Start here
What this playbook is, who it is for, and the five systems the rest of it is built around.
Module 2
Positioning and strategy
Before any channel or tactic: decide what you sell, to whom, and why it wins. Skipping this is why the later work underperforms.
Positioning for founders: why nobody gets your product
What positioning actually is, and how to do the first pass yourself this week.
Pick a beachhead: choosing your first customer segment
Ruling out buyers feels wrong, but a narrow segment is what makes your pitch specific enough to close. Founders who come from their industry already know where to start.
From feature list to one story
The message hierarchy: problem, stakes, change, proof. Why "AI-powered platform for X" says nothing.
The one-sentence pitch test
If a stranger cannot repeat what you do after one sentence, every page and ad after it loses buyers who never understood what you sell.
Module 3
Make your website convert
Fix conversion before you buy traffic. Until the site converts, you pay for the same visitor twice: once to get them there, again to win them back.
The 5-second homepage test most SaaS startups fail
What a visitor must know above the fold, in what order.
Anatomy of a landing page that converts
A section-by-section blueprint, with every section aimed at the one action you want the visitor to take.
Demo, trial, or waitlist: picking your conversion path
Which call to action fits how you sell and what you charge, and where founders add friction without noticing.
Social proof when you have three customers
Honest ways to borrow credibility before you have a row of customer logos to show.
Module 4
First customers without a budget
Ways to get customers that cost time instead of money, and that work because the founder is the one doing them.
Founder-led outbound: cold email that gets replies
Prospects reply to a founder's own email far more often than to a rep's, because they are hearing from the person who built the product. How to build the list, write the four-sentence email, and follow up without nagging.
LinkedIn for founders who hate posting
A sustainable system: what to share, how often, and what to skip entirely.
Communities, directories, and partnerships that send real buyers
Your buyers already gather in industry communities and directories. Go where they are instead of where marketers are.
Launches are a channel
How to run a launch bigger than one post, and how to launch the same product more than once.
Module 5
Repeatable demand
Moving from outreach you send by hand to channels that produce pipeline even in weeks you never touch marketing.
Demand gen vs. lead gen: the difference that decides your CAC
Why hitting lead-count targets fills sales calendars with people who will never buy, and what to build instead.
Bottom-funnel first: content for a product nobody searches for yet
Nobody searches your product's name yet, but they do search the problem and your competitors. Start there instead of publishing volume.
Competitor and alternative pages
The highest-intent content you can publish this month, and the guardrails that keep it truthful.
Are you ready for paid ads? A checklist most startups fail
The prerequisites, and what to do with the money if you fail it.
Follow-up email for people who didn't buy today
Most of your pipeline is "not yet." A minimal setup: a welcome email, a nurture sequence, and one email for people who went quiet.
Go deeper
How to build a B2B SaaS demand engine from scratch
The full order of operations, from a first marketing hire who did it.
B2B SaaS SEO with AI
How a small team builds organic into a top revenue channel.
Module 6
Measurement
Enough tracking to make good decisions, and not one report more.
The one-day analytics setup for early-stage SaaS
Analytics, CRM, and conversion events, done in a day. No consultant.
Metrics that matter before $1M ARR
Pipeline, win rate, payback. Not followers, impressions, or lead counts.
"Where did this customer come from?"
Getting an honest answer while you are still small enough to ask every customer, no attribution modeling required.
Go deeper
Multi-touch attribution for early-stage SaaS
First-touch attribution lies. Track two things instead of a fancy model.
How to build a custom marketing dashboard with Claude Code
Stop losing a day a month to manual reporting.
Module 7
Leverage: AI and getting help
Everything above is a full-time job. This module is about the honest math of doing it yourself, and the ways out.
The real cost of DIY marketing: founder time math
What running every system in this playbook takes per week, and the three ways out: learn it, hire it, or bring in a specialist.
AI won't do your marketing, but it changes who you need
What AI genuinely compresses, what it can't, and what that means for your first hire.
Your first marketing hire: who, when, and the mistakes that cost a year
The hiring sequence, and why a junior generalist first is the classic trap.
Go deeper
Fractional marketing leader vs. your first full-time hire
An honest framework from someone who has done both.
AI marketing automation for B2B SaaS
The playbook behind a two-person team that ships like a bigger one.
11 marketing tasks early-stage SaaS teams should automate with AI
The tasks to hand off, with the before-and-after on each.
How to build an AI-native marketing stack on a startup budget
The lean stack, by layer, and what to skip.
Module 8 · Capstone
The 90-day plan
The whole playbook compressed into one sequenced plan you can start Monday.
Your first 90 days of marketing
Week-by-week milestones, each building on the last.
Common questions
Founders of early-stage B2B SaaS companies who are doing their own marketing for the first time. You bring the product and industry knowledge; the playbook covers the marketing side: positioning, a website that converts, first customers, repeatable demand, and measurement.
Yes. Each lesson goes up free on this site as I publish it, no signup required.
I publish a new lesson every week, working through the modules in order, until all 26 are out. If you subscribe, I'll email each one to you as soon as it's published. If not, just check back here; anything marked coming soon isn't out yet.
Joseph Ortega. Building marketing from nothing at early-stage B2B SaaS companies is what I do, first as an in-house marketing lead and now for the teams that bring me in to get theirs started. The playbook is that work written down, in the order I would do it again.
Or skip ahead
Want this done for you?
Everything I teach in this playbook is work I do myself for early-stage SaaS teams. In the two-week growth diagnostic, I find your bottleneck and give you a 90-day roadmap built on your numbers.