Cracking the “Deal Economy”: How Enable Scales SaaS Growth in an Old-School B2B Space

In the $86 trillion global economy, there’s a $30 trillion chunk of trade that still runs on phone calls, emails, and even fax machines. It’s the world of B2B distribution — where manufacturers, distributors, and retailers negotiate complex rebate deals that can make or break profit margins.

Andrew Butt, co-founder and CEO of Enable, saw the inefficiencies firsthand while working with one of the UK’s largest distribution businesses. Deals worth millions were being tracked in spreadsheets, riddled with errors, and lacking visibility across partners.

Enable was born to solve that — replacing spreadsheet chaos with a collaborative SaaS platform that lets supply chain partners structure, track, and optimize complex trading agreements in real time.

Lesson 1: Use Buyer Intelligence to Uncover an Overlooked Market

Andrew didn’t start by trying to disrupt the hottest SaaS category. Instead, he spotted a market that most tech founders ignored: the rebate-heavy “deal economy” of distribution.

Key insight:

• Distributors and suppliers already had the budget — rebates are a multi-million-dollar line item — but they lacked tools that improved transparency and profitability.

• No competitor was offering a modern, self-serve, consumer-grade SaaS experience for this buyer.

Agency takeaway: A deep understanding of buyer workflows and pain points can reveal niche markets with less competition and faster adoption potential.

Lesson 2: From Custom Builds to SaaS Focus

Before Enable, Andrew’s team built bespoke software for individual clients — which paid the bills but limited scalability. Over time, multiple clients asked for the same solution: a better way to manage deals.

The turning point came when they stopped building per-customer systems and created a single SaaS product that any distributor or supplier could use.

Sales enablement insight: Standardizing on a product-led model creates predictable onboarding, a repeatable sales motion, and more leverage for marketing.

Lesson 3: Fund Growth to Focus Growth

Enable bootstrapped for years, growing steadily from the UK and winning U.S. customers remotely. But to scale faster, they needed to focus — and that meant raising capital.

Andrew relocated to San Francisco, raised a Series A, and doubled down on the U.S. market. The shift allowed them to:

• Hire a dedicated U.S. sales team.

• Invest in marketing and category creation.

• Build a leadership team with B2B SaaS scale experience.

Buyer intelligence insight: Funding isn’t just about runway — it lets you stop chasing short-term revenue distractions and align every function on the same growth goal.

Lesson 4: Design Your Web Experience Like a SaaS Onboarding Flow

Enable broke from industry norms by making its product feel like modern SaaS:

• Pricing available on the website.

• Free trial access.

• Public Help Center and API docs.

In an industry where competitors hide behind RFPs and sales calls, this transparency built trust and positioned Enable as the easy, low-friction choice.

Web design takeaway: Even in B2B enterprise, a conversion-focused site with frictionless access can differentiate you from entrenched competitors.

Lesson 5: Build Retention Through Network Effects

Every new distributor using Enable invites hundreds of suppliers to collaborate in-platform. Those suppliers can then start their own free trial — effectively turning every customer into a lead generator.

While the network effect is still in its early stages, Andrew sees it as a future growth engine and a natural driver of SaaS retention: the more partners onboarded, the harder it is for any single participant to leave.

Retention strategy insight: Features that connect your customers’ ecosystem make your product stickier and multiply your reach.

Enable’s Buyer-Centric SaaS Growth Playbook

1. Find overlooked markets where the pain is high but competition is low.

2. Standardize for scale — move from custom builds to a product-led SaaS model.

3. Use funding to align focus, not just extend runway.

4. Reduce web friction with transparent pricing, trials, and resources.

5. Leverage network effects to drive organic adoption and retention.

Why this matters for SaaS founders & tech companies: Enable proves that you don’t need to chase the flashiest market to build a high-growth SaaS. By combining buyer intelligence, a frictionless buying experience, and long-term retention levers, you can dominate an overlooked category — and create a new one.