Evidence · Lens
Needs lens for what to build
A Maslow-shaped filter for B2B SaaS: which problems people must solve now, which ones feel optional, and how higher-tier products actually keep users. Use it next to the Opportunity Index and kill reasons, not instead of them.
Working rules
Rule 01
Lower tiers pull harder
Operational survival and risk/compliance problems get bought faster than mission and culture tools. Cool does not equal must-have.
Rule 02
Higher tiers need lower-tier hooks
Mission and standing products rarely retain on inspiration alone. Borrow retention from below: urgency, compliance deadlines, team workflows, status loops.
Rule 03
Win low, then expand up
Most durable B2B products dominate one low tier extremely well, then climb. Starting at mission without a survival wedge is the common trap.
With Opportunity Index
The Index scores market size, growth, pain, and competition. This lens asks whether the pain is a survival need or a vitamin. A Strong market with only mission-tier problems is still a trap.
With kill reasons
Higher tiers correlate with Vitamin kills. Lower tiers more often die as Saturated or Legal. Read both before you build.
B2B hierarchy
Five tiers, strongest pull first
Most durable B2B products win one low tier extremely well, then expand upward. Scan the ladder, then classify your idea below.
- 01Strong pull
Operational survival
The business literally cannot function without this.
Rule · Strongest inherent pull. Prioritize if the buyer already pays for a painful workaround today.
Retention · Retention is natural when the product sits in the daily path of money, inventory, or uptime. Churn means the business breaks.
Examples
Stripe / payment processing · Gusto / payroll · QuickBooks / basic accounting · Shopify POS / inventory · Vercel / hosting and deploys · Datadog / uptime monitoring
- 02Strong pull
Risk and compliance
Avoid something bad: fines, breaches, fraud, failed audits.
Rule · Buyers act when fear or a deadline is concrete. Frame around the bad day you prevent.
Retention · Retention rides on continuous exposure: renewals, audits, new regs, incident response. Deadline calendars beat dashboards.
Examples
1Password / secrets · Vanta / compliance · Socure / identity verification · Stripe Radar / fraud · CrowdStrike / endpoint security · insurance and renewal reminders
- 03Moderate pull
Relationships and workforce
People the business depends on: customers, employees, vendors.
Rule · Pull is real when switching costs or coordination pain are high. Weak when it is another chat or CRM clone.
Retention · Retention comes from shared records and rituals: pipelines, tickets, onboarding checklists, vendor SLAs. Solo tools lose to network effects unless the wedge is sharp.
Examples
HubSpot / CRM · Greenhouse / recruiting · Zendesk / support · Rippling / HR ops · Notion / team docs · vendor and contractor trackers
- 04Moderate pull
Market standing
Compete and grow: visibility, attribution, intel, pricing power.
Rule · Buyers care when growth is the mandate. Easy to market, harder to prove ROI vs. incumbents.
Retention · Retention needs measurable loops: rankings, pipeline influenced, spend saved. Without a scoreboard, these churn after the trial.
Examples
Ahrefs / SEO · Mixpanel / product analytics · Gong / sales enablement · Tableau / BI · ad platforms and attribution · competitive intel dashboards
- 05Weak pull
Mission and legacy
Why the company exists beyond this quarter's profit.
Rule · Weakest inherent pull. Only pursue with a sponsor who already budgets for it, or attach it to a lower-tier wedge.
Retention · Inspiration does not retain. Pair with compliance calendars, board reporting, or team status rituals from lower tiers.
Examples
ESG reporting tools · CSR trackers · innovation / R&D portfolio platforms · culture and values apps · long-range strategy workspaces
Working filter
Classify an idea
Paste a problem or product one-liner. Atlas maps it to a B2B need tier, retention implications, and the kill risks we see most often in the verdicts library. Heuristic only — not a model call.
Try one
ExtendedThe same ladder shows up at larger scales: governments buy survival and security first (grid, defense, cyber), then cohesion and standing; multiplanetary pitches are species-level self-actualization sitting on top of still-unsolved Earth survival. Useful as pattern recognition, not as your ICP.