Finding customers through the tools they already use

What I'm trying

I'm using the software a company already uses as an additional signal to identify potential customers. In B2B segmentation, this is generally referred to as technographic data: information about the technologies and software used by a company. It complements firmographic data such as industry, company size and location.

Here, I'm not trying to build a complete picture of a company's tech stack. I'm using one adjacent product with significant overlap with my ICP as a starting point for prospect discovery. The process is:

Adjacent product → public signals → ICP filters → manual qualification → outreach

The adjacent product is not sufficient to qualify a company. It simply reduces the search space.

How I'm doing it

Step 1 — Select an adjacent product

I start with one product that meets a few criteria:

• Strong overlap with my target market
• Established adoption within the vertical
• Complementary to what I'm building
• Observable public activity around the product

The product should provide useful information about the type of company using or showing interest in it.

Step 2 — Identify public signals

I use publicly available information to identify companies associated with the product. For now, I'm looking primarily at:

• LinkedIn followers
• Reactions to company posts
• Comments
• Published customer stories
• Partner directories
• Public product mentions

These signals have different levels of confidence. A customer case study is stronger evidence of product usage than a LinkedIn reaction, for example. I'm not treating them equally.

Step 3 — Apply the ICP

The product signal is only the first filter. Each company still needs to match the ICP. Current qualification criteria include:

• Industry
• Company size
• Geography
• Relevant role
• Business characteristics

This separates two questions:

Does this company match the ICP? and Is there an additional signal that makes it worth prioritizing?

This distinction is consistent with established B2B segmentation approaches, where firmographic and technographic variables can be combined rather than used independently.

Step 4 — Qualify manually

I'm keeping qualification manual at this stage. For each company, I review:

• Website
• Team
• Services
• Positioning
• Available information about its operations
• Evidence supporting or contradicting the initial fit

The objective is not to maximize list size. It's to find out which companies are consistently worth contacting. Automation can come later if the process proves useful.

Step 5 — Reach out with something useful

Once a company is qualified, I don't start with a product demo. I lead with a give-first approach. Depending on the company, that can mean sharing:

• A documented process
• A template
• A practical resource
• Relevant industry information

The resource should have standalone value on its own, regardless of what it does for the relationship afterward.