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The Counterintuitive Path to Enterprise Sales: Why Certa’s Founder Believes Most B2B Companies Are Taking the Wrong Approach

Building enterprise software is often viewed as a complex dance of outsourced functions and agency relationships. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Certa founder Jag Lamba shared why he believes this conventional wisdom is fundamentally flawed.

Three years into building Certa, Jag made a series of unconventional decisions that would shape the company’s trajectory. Rather than following the typical B2B playbook of casting a wide net and relying on external partners, he chose to double down on internal capabilities and laser-focused targeting.

“I’m always opposed to outsourcing things,” Jag explains. “I think a firm needs to own these capabilities and that’s the only sustainable way.” This stance might seem counterintuitive in today’s landscape of specialized agencies and outsourced SDR teams, but his reasoning is compelling.

Jag uses an illuminating analogy to explain his philosophy: “Agencies are lasers. They can come in, they can help for a project, but they’re not going to be the one who will sustain you, spreading your message and sharing your message.” While a laser can create intense, focused impact, sustainable growth requires the steady illumination of a light bulb.

This philosophy shaped Certa’s entire go-to-market strategy. Instead of trying to serve everyone, they focused exclusively on enterprise customers. This decision enabled a highly targeted approach to outreach and marketing. As Jag notes, “We’re lucky that we focus on the largest enterprises only, which means it’s classic account-based marketing. So that’s what makes it easier for us to not be spammy.”

The results speak for themselves. “We’ve been able to successfully deploy Certa at every single client we’ve sold Certa to,” Jag shares. This perfect deployment record didn’t happen by accident. It came from a deliberate decision to build deep before going broad: “We really invested in building a great deep product, so we didn’t go to market too early with something shallow.”

For marketing, Jag advocates an education-first approach rather than traditional branding exercises. “For B2B SaaS, I really think that’s the best and the only way to look at marketing. It’s not about branding, if you will, it’s all about education. It’s about raising awareness.”

This focus on education extends to how Certa approaches analyst relations. Beyond traditional firms like Gartner and Forrester, Jag has observed a shift in the industry: “Similar to what’s happening in social media, it’s also happening with analysts… there are individual independent analysts who have become pretty widely followed by our clients.” He draws an interesting parallel: “It’s similar to like the MrBeast phenomenon where, you know, with my ten year old, you know, MrBeast is as popular as, you know, Brad Pitt.”

When it comes to fundraising, Jag emphasizes the importance of ongoing relationships over transactional pitches. “Fundraising works well if you can stay in touch with a few investors, maybe quarterly, et cetera, who might be interested in your space and enable them to track you.” This approach helped Certa raise capital even in challenging market conditions.

Looking ahead, Jag’s vision is clear and ambitious: “Companies will be able to onboard and work with each other with one click.” He envisions a future where business relationships can be formed as easily as accepting a LinkedIn connection, while still maintaining necessary compliance and safety checks.

For B2B founders navigating their own go-to-market decisions, Jag’s experience offers a compelling alternative to conventional wisdom. His success suggests that building strong internal capabilities, while potentially slower initially, creates a more sustainable path to long-term success in enterprise software. The key is staying focused and committed to your strengths, or as Jag puts it: “What we realized is that our strength was solving this big problem… why not focus on just the enterprise went up.”