There never was a problem.
As you can see, it has been six months since I officially built Azurro. I started with a mobile application based on my initial idea of creating a marketplace that helped users find and book slots at their favorite sports facilities. However, I soon realized the downside of building a marketplace: the sports facilities weren’t receiving the level of service they expected. Another major concern was that these facilities couldn’t guarantee customers would switch to my platform, making Azurro a purely B2C product.
Admitting it would be difficult to gain traction and revenue as a B2C product without early-stage funding, I considered a mindset pivot. From my interactions with existing competition, I noticed that the services they provided through their apps didn’t satisfy many of the facility managers I spoke to. This revealed an opportunity to shift focus and build for enterprises (sports facility owners and management). Thus, I repositioned Azurro from B2C to B2B, establishing it as a B2B SaaS startup.
I began working on feedback from my mobile application, which emphasized giving facility management complete control over bookings and slots. Since then, I’ve been developing CRM and ERP solutions for them. My acquisition strategy focused on facilities with no more than one turf/court at their venue, allowing me to build in a leaner manner.
The development phase for the SaaS platform ran from December to mid-February—two months of feedbacks and iterations with a select group of sports facility managements. The result? The business owners, who were the ones paying for the product, liked it and called it amazing, but they didn’t want to use it. Why? Because they never had any problems! They were already using Excel, Google Calendar, and WhatsApp to run their businesses. I introduced Azurro to integrate all these tools and give facility owners complete oversight of their operations. But in the end, I was just an alternative.
What have I learned from this?
It’s very hard to sell a good product if it doesn’t solve a major problem. I’m still betting on larger-scale enterprises, as interacting with them could provide the insights needed to move forward. I don’t see this as a failure yet—there’s still more work to be done.