From 50 Customer Interviews to First Enterprise Deal: How Place Built Their Early Customer Base Through Research-Driven Sales

Most founders approach customer research and sales as separate activities. But what if your research process could actually generate your first customers? That’s exactly what Place, a location intelligence platform, accomplished in their early days.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, founder Snorre Jordheim Myhre revealed how they transformed what started as market research into a powerful customer acquisition strategy.

The Research-First Approach

As part of Antler’s startup program, Place took an unusually systematic approach to market validation. “Within a month or so, we interviewed almost 50 different companies, everything from Starbucks in our way to the small restaurants just on the corner, mom pop shops and so on, and try to understand how they did their expansion planning and how they located from new locations,” Snorre explained.

But what made their approach unique wasn’t just the volume of interviews – it was how they structured them. Each interview served dual purposes: gathering insights about expansion planning processes while subtly validating their product concept.

Converting Research into Revenue

The key to their success lay in a deliberate interview structure that culminated in product validation. As Snorre describes, “At the end of every interview, also showed them some sketches of the business idea that we had, and most of them just really triggered on it, and they were so enthusiastic.”

This enthusiasm created a natural bridge to their next step. Instead of trying to sell these companies cold, they invited them to participate in product development. “When we got the initial funding from Ansler and started to build the MVP that we had defined or wanted to define, then we asked a handful of the companies that we talked with or interviewed if they wanted to be a part of the product development effort,” Snorre shared.

Landing the First Enterprise Client

This approach proved particularly effective with larger enterprises. One of their early research participants became their largest customer – a mall operator with over 40 locations across Norway. As Snorre notes, “One of the customers, I mean, that came in during that first initial interview phase, I mean, they’re still our biggest customer. And it’s a mall company, mall operator, 40 plus shopping malls around Norway, and now almost the whole organization are they using our tool.”

The Network Effect

Getting meetings with larger enterprises like Starbucks came through a combination of network leverage and compelling value proposition. “We leverage the network of Anthra. And Anthra was started by a bunch of ex machines, our business school people. So they had a really good network here, both in Norway and internationally,” Snorre explained. But more importantly, “because what we suggested was so interested for many of them, they accepted meeting us.”

This initial success created momentum that continues today. Place has grown to 50 paying customers primarily through network effects and word-of-mouth, demonstrating the lasting impact of their research-driven sales approach.

For B2B founders, Place’s experience offers a valuable lesson: early customer research doesn’t have to be just about gathering information. When structured strategically, it can become your first sales channel, particularly for enterprise clients who appreciate being involved in product development from the early stages.

The key is presenting potential customers with something concrete – even if it’s just sketches – and creating natural opportunities for them to become more involved. This approach not only validates your product concept but can also build the foundation for your initial customer base.