SaaStr Highlights "Buy Your Own Product" Test, Revealing 100x Customer Frustration for B2B Founders

SaaStr.ai, a leading platform for SaaS insights, recently published an article advocating for a critical exercise: the "Buy Your Own Product" Test. The initiative urges every B2B founder to experience their own product's customer journey firsthand, cautioning that neglecting this step can lead to "100x" more frustration for actual customers. The article, titled "The “Buy Your Own Product” Test: Why Every B2B Founder Should Be Their Own Customer (At Least For A Day)," was shared by SaaStr.ai on social media.

The core premise of the test is for founders to interact with their company's offerings as an anonymous prospect, from initial contact to support and upgrades. This involves creating a new email address and navigating all customer touchpoints, including website forms, chatbots, phone numbers, and in-app purchase flows. The goal is to uncover hidden friction points and inefficiencies that often go unnoticed by internal teams.

According to the SaaStr.ai article, this exercise provides invaluable insights into conversion leaks and reasons for customer churn. It often reveals issues such as unresponsive contact forms, inadequate support systems, broken upgrade processes, or confusing pricing pages. The platform emphasizes that if founders wouldn't buy their own product through their own process, it's unreasonable to expect customers to.

The benefits extend beyond mere empathy, leading to tangible improvements in product development and customer retention. SaaStr.ai notes that successful companies like Zoom, Slack, and Stripe have historically embraced this practice, with their founders deeply immersing themselves in the user experience. This direct engagement helps prioritize product roadmap shifts and ensures the entire team understands the importance of customer experience.

SaaStr.ai challenges B2B founders to conduct this test, meticulously documenting the experience, timing response rates, and comparing their journey with top competitors. The recommendation is to immediately address the most critical issues identified, transforming potential disappointment into a catalyst for significant operational and product enhancements.