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The B2B Founder's Playbook for Pre-Product Market Validation

You have a game-changing B2B idea, a strong founding team, and a clear vision. But investors are hesitant. Why? Without a product, you lack the concrete traction—user metrics, revenue, paying customers—to prove a genuine market need exists. You're stuck trying to sell a concept, making it nearly impossible to de-risk the investment and secure the pre-seed funding you need to build.

This playbook provides a low-cost, high-impact stack to systematically prove market demand *before* you write a single line of code. By centralizing your outreach in a free CRM, you'll build a professional B2B sales pipeline of potential design partners. Use structured forms to capture their pain points and a dedicated feedback portal to formally collect and prioritize their feature requests. This turns abstract conversations into tangible, organized data, creating a powerful portfolio of evidence—including potential Letters of Intent—to present to investors.

Expected Outcomes

  • Build a tangible pipeline of qualified B2B leads who have confirmed the problem you're solving.
  • Generate a data-backed, prioritized feature roadmap based on direct prospect feedback.
  • Collect concrete evidence of purchase intent, potentially including signed Letters of Intent (LOIs).
  • Create a compelling, de-risked investment case to confidently present to pre-seed investors.
  • Systematize your customer discovery process to ensure you're building a product the market will buy.

Core Tools in This Stack

HubSpot CRM

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HubSpot CRM is a comprehensive platform that combines marketing, sales, customer service, and operations tools. It's designed to help businesses of all sizes grow by managing customer relationships, automating tasks, and providing a unified view of the customer journey.

Key Features
  • Contact Management
  • Sales Pipeline Visualization
  • Email Tracking & Templates
  • Meeting Scheduler
  • Live Chat & Chatbots
  • Marketing Automation Workflows
  • Reporting & Analytics Dashboard
  • Customer Service Ticketing
  • Data Sync & Automation
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Mid-range

Ease of Use

Easy

Jotform

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A powerful online form builder that allows users to create and publish forms for any purpose, collect payments, automate workflows, and gather data without any coding.

Key Features
  • Drag-and-Drop Form Builder
  • 10,000+ Form Templates
  • Payment Integration (Stripe, PayPal, Square, etc.)
  • Workflow Automation (Jotform Approvals)
  • Jotform Tables for spreadsheet-database hybrid data management
  • E-Signature Collection (Jotform Sign)
  • Conditional Logic to show/hide fields
  • HIPAA Compliance Features for healthcare
  • Mobile-responsive forms and dedicated mobile app
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Mid

Ease of Use

Easy

Canny.io

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Canny.io is a product feedback management tool that helps companies collect, prioritize, and track user feedback to build better products. It combines feedback boards, product roadmaps, and changelogs into a single platform.

Key Features
  • Feedback Boards for capturing feature requests
  • Public and Private Product Roadmaps
  • Changelog for announcing updates
  • User Segmentation and Analysis
  • Integrations with tools like Jira, Slack, and Intercom
  • Prioritization based on user votes and value
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Subscription

Tier: Medium

Ease of Use

Easy

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "CRM-Centric Pipeline & Feedback Stack" direction LR N0["HubSpot CRM"] N1["Jotform"] N2["Canny.io"] N1 -- "Creates or updates contact" --> N0 N1 -- "Sends submission data" --> N2 N0 -- "Sends enriched contact data" --> N2 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • HubSpot-to-Canny.io Consortium Sync

    This integration triggers when a new entry is submitted through a designated Jotform. The workflow first searches for the user in HubSpot using their email address. If the contact exists, it's updated with the new form data; if not, a new contact is created. Subsequently, the workflow uses the same email to identify the user in Canny.io, creating or updating their profile with data from both the Jotform submission and the enriched HubSpot contact record. This ensures that when a user interacts with Canny.io, their profile is complete and aligned with your CRM data.

Get the Pre-Product Validation Playbook

Learn how to prove market need and secure pre-seed funding before writing a single line of code.