The Missed Niche Lesson: Why Our First Big Pitch Failed

businessstartuplessonscustomer-selectionpitch

Three months ago, I started a simple fitness journey.
I wanted structure — so I hired an online fitness coach to build me diet plans and workout programs.

We chatted through WhatsApp.
He had over 100+ clients.
His replies were slow, sometimes days late.

As a technical guy, I saw the problem immediately.
This wasn’t just about me — it was about scalability.
So I asked myself: what if we could automate the repetitive parts of his coaching?

The Idea: A Digital Twin

I brought in a friend who’s more business-focused. Together, we came up with a solution:

  • A digital twin of the coach.
  • Answering just like him, but faster.
  • Generating personalized diet and training plans.
  • Human-in-the-loop: the coach still reviews and adjusts, but 80% of the manual work is gone.

On paper, it looked strong.
We even built a business plan, calculated ROI, and estimated impact:

  • Hours saved per week.
  • Higher LTV (lifetime value) per client.
  • Potential to scale without burning out.

The Pitch in Ljubljana

We traveled to his office in Ljubljana to pitch.
We showed him the math. We explained how much time he’d get back and how much more money he could make.

At first, he was interested.
But then came the real problem: pricing.

He couldn’t afford it.
Not because it wasn’t valuable, but because he simply didn’t have the budget.

The Hard Truth

We were trying to sell a high-ticket automation product to a freelancer with limited cash flow.
That’s the wrong niche.

He declined the deal two days later. His words:

“I don’t have that much money right now for this kind of risk.”

And he was right.

The Lesson

We didn’t fail because the tech was bad.
We failed because the customer was wrong.

👉 Product-market fit and customer selection are more important than raw technology.

You can build the slickest AI system in the world, calculate ROI, and make the perfect pitch…
But if the buyer can’t afford it, you’ve already lost.

What’s Next?

For me, this was a wake-up call.
Don’t just build for the problem. Build for the buyer.

The right customer will pay 10x more than the wrong one — even if the solution is identical.

And that’s the real missed niche lesson.