Local businesses don’t buy the way SaaS expects

Selling to local businesses is brutally hard. Not “challenging.” Not “nuanced.” Just hard.

Over the past few years, I’ve talked to 500+ companies - big and small - that tried to sell to local businesses.

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Most of them failed.

And it wasn’t because they were dumb or lazy. They failed for three predictable reasons:

data, execution, and the nature of local businesses themselves.

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A Quick Background

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In 2021, I started selling to local businesses as a side project and built a small brand.

In 2023, we joined YC and began solving this pain for myself and many others.

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After hundreds of conversations with VC-backed companies selling to local businesses, one thing became clear:

I wouldn’t casually enter this market again.

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This is why.

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1. Data is the first killer

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Most teams start by calling business phone numbers.

That produces <1% conversion rates.

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A typical funnel looks like this:

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• Call 100 businesses
• 10 pick up
• 5 say the owner isn’t there
• 3 say the owner doesn’t want to talk
• 2 owners talk to you and usually still say no

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The only ways we’ve seen this improve:

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1. Know the owner’s name before calling and ask for them directly
2. Reach owners on personal phones + email, using multi-touch outreach

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Without this, outbound doesn’t scale.

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2. Execution matters more than people think

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Calling local businesses produces wildly different outcomes across teams.

The best operators:

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• Call every day, like a machine
• Follow rigid schedules
• Track everything
• Combine inbound + outbound
• Use multi-touch follow-ups

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The results are extreme:

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Best teams close 1 deal out of ~8 calls

Worst teams don’t close after 300 calls

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This isn’t always a PMF problem. Execution alone can be the difference between “working” and “dead.”

We tracked metrics across many teams, and we genuinely respect some of the companies operating in this space.

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3. The nature of local businesses is the hardest problem

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Local businesses hate subscriptions.

Especially SaaS priced at ~$99/month.

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The best models we’ve seen:

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• POS systems
• Products with a hidden take rate
• Tools that clearly generate revenue

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If you charge a subscription, you either:

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• Hide it in the workflow, or
• Prove it directly makes them money

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Otherwise, resistance is immediate. Check out ServiceTitan's S1 filing. You will get a better idea!

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A note on “failure”

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Many of the companies I spoke to were VC-backed and chasing hyper-growth.

If you’re a local agency with steady inbound demand, that’s different. That model can be very sustainable.

But venture-scale growth + local businesses is a brutal combination.

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What’s next for Openmart

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Openmart will remain a product line we maintain.

We’re still providing real value, especially around data quality and redefining what good data looks like.

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Final takeaway

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Local businesses aren’t a “go-to-market strategy.” They’re a different game entirely.

If you don’t respect that, the market will humble you fast.

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