FaPro: when the standard playbook doesn't fit
A total market of ~200 companies across Chile ruled out any volume tactic. The first approach failed.
Context
FaPro is a SaaS platform for the Chilean factoring industry: risk analysis and opportunity detection, something the standard tools in the category didn't offer, which changed how factoring companies competed with each other.
I advised them for six months in 2021, as an expansion consultant at ArchGroup.
The product was already validated and the founders had no concrete acquisition process. And one constraint organised everything else: the total market was around 200 companies in the entire country.
What didn't work
I opened with the default playbook, high-volume outbound. It failed.
With 200 accounts you burn the whole list in a few weeks and lose any room to iterate on messaging. There's no second statistical sample waiting for you. Every account burned on a mediocre message is half a point of the market gone for a long while.
What I did instead
Full TAM mapping. I identified and mapped the complete universe of factoring companies in Chile. At 200 accounts the full map is reachable, and the conversation changes: you go from prospecting to covering a market.
Institutional partnerships, the Chilean Chamber of Commerce being the most relevant. In a niche like that, cold outreach on its own doesn't land.
Nurturing and events aimed at that mapped TAM.
What happened
From ~5 to ~20 clients in 12 months. The figure is approximate and not independently verified: I don't have exact historical numbers, I have a reasonable estimate.
FaPro was awarded ArchGroup's Premio Gacela in 2021, the recognition ArchGroup gives the companies it advises for outstanding growth. I was their consultant that year, and the award belongs to FaPro. It's the only third-party evidence behind that growth, which is why I tell it.
The TAM map, the partnership channel and the nurturing cadence kept running after the engagement ended, operated by the FaPro team.