Small B2B Teams Can Outmaneuver Large Competitors by Doing One Thing Better
- Summer Poletti
- May 7
- 9 min read
What a kid-focused AI startup can teach us about efficient growth in B2B tech
In startups and growth-stage businesses, especially disruptors in mature industries, we often glorify what we could do if we just had more. More resources. More advertising and marketing budget. More salespeople. More money to invest in the product.
But here's the catch. Those large players need all those extra resources. They've got layers of staff and management, more eyeballs on them and increased risk for target by fraudulent actors. In short, more bloat. It's why Salesforce has to charge so much more than Zoho. Is it really THAT much better or are you paying for all those fat cat salaries?
Intro: The Myth of the Underdog
I’ve been following Dipti Bhide and LittleLit.AI for several months now, and it appealed to me on two levels.
First, I have a school-aged child, and so preparing kids for the workplace that they will eventually enter into is very important to me. To this day, the AI instruction my daughter gets from school is "NO!" Her essays are run through the plagiarism screening tool and now also a ChatGPT screening tool. In short, they're teaching her that AI is cheating. She is fortunate to have an AI-savvy parent who has taught her how to use it, how to be safe, and when to stop using it (we don't argue with robots here). But as a business leader, I'm worried about the kids who don't have AI leaders at home, seriously if it was just my husband, she'd be behind. Kids are tomorrow's workforce and we do them, and the economy, a disservice if we don't properly prepare them for the "real world".
And then as a founder who is constantly talking about the future of work, anything AI appeals to me. AI is the future of work, and LittleLit AI is the ground floor of something, defining a new category, and architecting the future of work. I was drawn to Dipti's rise as a visionary leader. But she's in EdTech, what does that have to do with you? I got you.
What You’ll Get From This Post
A founder’s take on how small teams can outmaneuver big companies
What AI actually looks like inside a lean B2B team
Why “light strategy” is better than rushing into scale
How LittleLit’s approach applies to SaaS and fintech CEOs today
Research Stats: Why AI Is your Growth Catalyst
AI increases productivity by 27% to 133% in SMBs, especially when automating tasks like staff scheduling and inventory.— The Times UK
91% of small and medium-sized businesses using AI say it boosts revenue, and 87% say it helps them scale.— Salesforce
Even the smallest firms are showing high AI adoption, and usage is expected to keep rising across 2024.— U.S. Census Bureau
Small Isn't a Hindrance
I have worked for most of my career in startups or growth stage businesses, and there's always this myth that they have that if they had more resources, they could get more done.
Look at all the things that Google and IBM and Microsoft are doing, and the reality of those... it's funny, I was listening to a podcast the other day, and they were complaining about the state of LinkedIn right now. (Are you even in B2B if you're not doing that right now?) And the guest said, well, LinkedIn is aware of these things, they just move really slowly.
That is the advantage that I think startups and growth stage businesses have over their larger competitors. The larger folks in your field, they definitely have more resources, but they also need more money because they have so many different teams and so many different layers of complexity within their org chart. And in order to get all of the stakeholders involved, it takes a long time to get anything done.
Ever sold something to an industry giant? I have. The one that comes to mind is an IBM deal. The funny thing is that it wasn't even IBM-IBM, it was by their standards a small, wholly-owned subsidiary. It was a lead from a strategic partner and you know those tend to close a lot faster. It still took 24 months. 12 stakeholders (that we met), an NDA before we even spoke, I forgot how many demos, reviews of all of our security protocols, financials, SOC II, the whole 9 yards, 80-page contract with I forgot how many rounds of revisions. The crazy thing? Because it was a strategic partner deal, we were the only solution they were talking to. And then, finally signature (and that round of drinks sales and marketing had been promising). After that, it took them a mere 18 months to go live. So, to get from we have a problem we need to solve, to implementing the solution, was 3 1/2 years.
Long story short: What smaller teams have is agility, the ability to pivot (to borrow 2020's most overused word), and act quickly on things. And in this moment where AI is also moving very quickly, startups and growth stage companies have an advantage that I don't think they fully understand that they have.
I work with teams who realize that right now is their window. Are you trying to perfect your ops before adopting AI, launching your next thing, or are you hunkering down in this uncertain economic market? I hate to tell you, you're already behind. The smartest founders I work with are using this moment, not waiting for it. And that’s why they’re gaining ground while their competitors stall out.
Tech is the Secret Weapon
So I take it upon myself to preach that AI and automation can help your team be more efficient. I'm an efficiency nut, having grown up in growth-stage businesses, and what is AI if not the latest tech tool to make you more efficient? AI and automation can help you do more with the budget that you have, and they can help you close the gap in between what you're doing and what your larger competitors are doing.
And with a smaller, more agile team, startups and growth stage companies can outmaneuver their larger competitors and come to market quicker with new features and really adapt to the rapidly evolving business space that we're in waaaayy better than their larger competitors.
Dipti is highly technical. She used to work at Microsoft. And I am not. But yet, we both use AI. And AI changes the game for small teams. It's about making your team more efficient so that they can do more of the strategic and the creative and the planning. Let the AI and the automation take care of the mundane tasks.
So instead of using your small team as operators, as doers, you're using your small team as strategists, which is really what a startup and a growth stage company needs. Really clever minds working on something big. And those really clever minds do not have time to manually research a prospect or manually update the CRM or type out their own follow-up emails sometimes.
Start With One to Three Things, Then Scale
If anybody wants to use AI but they're not sure where to start or they don't want to jump in because it's moving too fast and they don't want to do the wrong thing or pick the wrong tool, I get it.
What I think you should do is look at where you're at right now and look at where you want to be at the end of the year. Then look at the areas of the business that are most likely to derail that goal or make it harder to achieve. Look at one to three things max where you need help and then ask yourself, can AI help with this? Can automation help with this?
Not sure which tools? Ask your team, their probably already using something incognito.
And just start with one to three things that will be impactful. Do those, and then move on to the next.
Light Strategy > Sloppy Action
When I'm working with startups and growth stage businesses, there is urgency to act and get stuff done. The challenge with “hurry up and do stuff” is it sometimes comes with something like, "We just need to build pipeline, we don't have time to strategize." First, I get it. As a 3x founder, I've built using my own money and I've built using investor money. Both are stressful for very different reasons. However, tough love here, huge mistake.
What is your objective?
What is your measurable goal?
What are the refined tactics that you're going to do that are going to guarantee that you achieve that measurable goal?
And that's what strategy is all about.
We don't spend months researching and building out an entire full-blown 30-page strategy. We make sure we know the target market, the ideal client, we know their challenges, and we know how we can help them solve their challenges better than or faster than the competition.
Then we look at what objections they might have and what might be the hook, like what would draw them in and get them to listen to our message. Then we figure out where we are right now, where we need to be, and we pick the most impactful tactics that are going to get them there the fastest.
That’s why my clients move fast and hit their revenue targets. It’s not magic, it’s just clarity, ruthless prioritization, and a system that’s designed to flex. I don’t do long decks or 90-day audits. We find the levers we need to pull. And then we pull them.
So we do some light planning, and then we execute. You wouldn't start on a road trip without knowing where you were headed would you?
Ship Earlier. Learn Faster. Repeat.
Whether you're launching your company, or launching into a new market, or launching a new product, Dipti said it so simply. How did you validate? “We just went to market.”
I think sometimes we spend too much time perfecting the product before we get eyeballs on it because we don't want egg on our face. Getting it out there too soon while it's still sloppy is a mistake. And waiting for years to get it perfect is just as bad of a mistake, especially now with everything moving as quickly as it does.
You want to get your minimally viable product out, and that’s going to mean a different thing to everybody. I try to simplify it: I like to frame it as "good enough". get it good enough to show someone.
Start lower stakes. Start with your business friends. And be careful because sometimes they're going to tell you exactly what ChatGPT would say: “This is the best offer since sliced bread, you're a freaking genius,” and that is not the kind of feedback that you need.
Make some tweaks and then bring it to potential partners, people who would know your industry, but not ideal buyers yet. This is strategi for a different reason, ask me about it.
Make tweaks again. And then get it in front of your ideal buyer. I highly recommend you tell people it's new, we don't have time for the story about when my employer made me lie to early adopters. Trust me, transparency is the best policy.
Sneak Peek: Podcast Clip with Dipti Bhide
We have spoken so much about Dipti, let's hear straight from her.
🎧 Listen to the full episode with Dipti here. Recommended listen for any founders, Ce-level leaders and anyone who knows a school-aged child.
Do This Today:
Working on a new product, feature, expansion into a new market or vertical? If you're building something, get it ready to show to a business friend. And then ask them for their honest opinion. Even if they're overly nice and not totally honest, you're still flexing your launch muscle instead of continuing to perfect in a vacuum.
What’s Next?
Honestly, I built my corporate career on this, and that is why it's at the core of what I do now with Rise of Us. Startups and growth stage companies don’t have the resources the big guys have yet, but they still need to grow.
So before we hire more people, we look at: how can we increase the productivity of the people that we already have here? That usually means looking at the sales process and where deals stall or die. It also means looking at when clients leave, why they leave, and where the system or service or process is breaking down. And internally, how many layers of approval are slowing you down? We get everyone aligned on the overarching goal, find the bottlenecks, and fix them.
Want help with that?
This is exactly what I do with early-stage teams: remove friction, clarify goals, and build lean, scalable GTM systems that grow revenue without adding headcount. If you’re serious about moving faster, and smarter, let’s talk.
Rise of Us is a practice run by Summer Poletti, specializing in revenue growth: sales, strategic partnerships, customer success, marketing alignment. We generally work with financial services and SaaS companies from $2MM - $20MM ARR and help them plan and execute for their next stage of revenue growth. We concentrate on strategy, coaching, and organizational alignment.
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