?B2B-only dynamic QR SaaS with no traction — is my niche actually too narrow, or am I just bad at marketing? How do I tell?

Across multiple IndieHackers B2B SaaS validation threads, a recurring action plan: join 3-5 communities where target users hang out (LinkedIn, niche subreddits, industry Discord) and conduct 10 customer interviews using The Mom Test framework (Rob Fitzpatrick) before doing any product or marketing iteration. The Mom Test is built for exactly this diagnosis: it teaches you to ask about prospects’ past behavior and current workflows (which surfaces real pain) rather than their future intent (which produces polite agreement). Applied to the OP’s case (B2B dynamic QR, 2 months 0 traction): 10 interviews specifically asking “how did you track QR campaigns last time you ran one, and what was annoying about it” will tell you whether the workflow gap exists (niche real, marketing broken) or doesn’t (niche too narrow OR no actual pain).

Multiple IndieHackers “is it possible to be too niche” discussions land on a consistent reframe: micro-niches are often overlooked because they seem too small, but a pond-with-fish beats an ocean-with-competition. Quoted from one of the threads: “less competition, more focus, and better odds of a catch.” Applied to the OP’s case (B2B-only dynamic QR + analytics + geolocation): instead of asking is this niche too narrow, test the inverse — “is this niche actually still too broad?” Find a sub-segment where the painful version of the problem lives (event marketers tracking print campaigns across venues; retail brands geo-tracking print drops; B2B sales prospecting via flyer-on-conference-table) and double down on one. If the painful sub-segment exists, the niche has a real market and you’ve been targeting too generically. If no painful sub-segment exists, the niche is genuinely missing pain.

Reusing a pattern from a separate HN validation thread (commenter mchasse, from the CommitBet QT): “go out and find some group of people/companies and then ask them what problems are they currently facing that are not currently ideally solved.” Operationalized as a diagnostic: find 5 candidates in different B2B sub-segments (event marketers, retail print campaigns, B2B sales prospecting). Ask each — before mentioning your product — “how do you currently track QR campaigns and what’s broken about it?” If 4 of 5 sub-segments describe Bitly + spreadsheet + manual reconciliation as broken → marketing problem (real niche, you’re failing to reach it). If 0-1 of 5 describe any current behavior around QR campaign tracking → niche is genuinely too narrow OR the painful version is even narrower than current targeting.