5 Unconventional GTM Lessons from Billy’s Evolution: Why Some B2B Problems Aren’t Worth Solving
Sometimes the most valuable GTM lessons come from abandoning what seems like an obvious market opportunity. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Billy founder Nyasha Gutsa shared how his team’s pivot from construction payments to insurance workflows revealed crucial insights about product-market fit in enterprise software.
- The Obvious Problem Isn’t Always the Right Problem
The construction industry’s payment processes seem archaic, making them an obvious target for modernization. But Billy’s early attempts revealed a crucial insight: some inefficiencies exist because they serve a hidden purpose.
“Construction companies are less willing to go towards electronic payments, especially for really large amounts. They prefer checks,” Nyasha explains. “And the reason why they prefer checks is because they are able to hold that money as leverage to the person who’s getting paid.”
This realization carries a broader lesson: before trying to “fix” an industry practice, understand why it persists. Sometimes what looks like inefficiency is actually a feature, not a bug.
- Look for Problems Adjacent to Your Initial Target
Billy’s pivot succeeded because they didn’t completely abandon their market knowledge. Instead, they identified an adjacent problem in the same ecosystem. As Nyasha describes, “The way in which businesses manage their insurance is still horse and buggy… if I ask you a question like, hey, how do you manage your insurance? You’re probably going to say, I stored my insurance in Gmail.”
This insight about insurance management emerged directly from their work on payments, where they discovered that contractors needed insurance certificates for payment processing.
- Platform Partnerships as a GTM Strategy
Rather than building a market from scratch, Billy made a strategic decision to leverage existing platforms. “We purposely focused on partnering with Procore,” Nyasha shares. This partnership helped them identify their ideal customer profile: “What we’re seeing are what I would call emerging to mid-size construction companies… those that do anywhere from 25 million to just over 250,000,000.”
The lesson? Sometimes the fastest path to market isn’t direct – it’s through strategic integration with established platforms where your customers already work.
- The Five-Minute Rule for Enterprise Software
Billy’s approach to product development reveals a crucial principle about enterprise software adoption. “I’m a big fan of DocuSign software,” Nyasha explains. “You can go and get up and running with DocuSign in just under five minutes. So this is exactly how we built Billy.”
This extends to their integration strategy: “The integration with Procore is just as simple as log in with your Pro Corps and you’re integrated and start using the software right away. There’s no logins for the other people that have to submit documents because for contractors, that creates a lot of friction.”
The key insight? Even in enterprise software, reducing friction is crucial – especially for products that need to be adopted across an organization.
- Culture as a Growth Driver
While most GTM discussions focus on sales and marketing, Billy’s approach reveals how culture can drive growth. “I believe that building a people first company allows you to build a forever business,” Nyasha notes. “If the employee shows up engaged and excited, they’re able to solve problems for us. And if they solve problems for us, it drives business… I have a saying which is culture drives business, and business drives culture.”
This perspective suggests that in B2B, especially for complex products, your team’s engagement directly impacts your ability to solve customer problems and drive growth.
The Platform Evolution Strategy
Billy’s long-term vision reveals a broader lesson about category creation in B2B software. They aim to become “the kayak of business insurance, where you just go and you can compare insurance coverage in a couple of minutes. You can purchase it, you can hire or fire your broker if you want, but all powered by Billy.”
This approach – starting with a specific workflow problem and expanding into a broader platform play – offers a blueprint for B2B founders. Instead of trying to revolutionize an industry overnight, focus on solving a specific, acute pain point first. Then use that foundation to build toward a larger platform vision.
These lessons from Billy’s journey challenge conventional wisdom about B2B GTM strategy. Sometimes the best opportunity isn’t the most obvious problem, but the hidden friction points that everyone has learned to live with. The key is having the courage to pivot when the data doesn’t support your initial hypothesis, and the insight to find the real problem worth solving.