I'd recommend you to do some consulting. I know it's counter-intuitive and something you don't want to do forever, but at the beginning of a B2B company it's extremely useful for 3 reasons:
1) It provides quick cash so it removes the stress of having to look for money too soon.
2) Direct customer feedback while working with them on day to day problems. At this point you really want to understand your customers pains so later you can solve them with technology.
3) Initial validation/traction for your product. At the beginning, customers will value your consulting way more than your product, but for every new customer, try to provide less consulting and cover the rest with your product. Check if your customers are equally happy.
If right now you're bootstraped, no revenue from SaaS yet, you and your cofounder are on your own and consulting, if related to your product, can give you 2) and 3) but more importantly 1), at a far bigger payout than you'll get from an early MRR.
This advice is opposed to common YC advise "don't lose focus, consulting IS losing focus" and I agree, but right now you're not funded, not accelerated, not incubated or anything and you're trying to finish your product. Stay afloat and don't burn your savings to the ground.
One more advice: finish your MVP soon, and at some point, early than you imagine, tell your first customers that's the version you're putting in production right now and it'll be like that for a while, because waiting for that customer(s) that "will definitely buy once we do X and Y" will KILL your roadmap and KILL your startup. You'll be doing features after features, won't focus on your core features and propositons, and won't discover what is your killer feature that you must polish. That's what will keep your first customers with you.
How does one approach companies for consulting when it's process improvement? I have a product for a specific industry I'm part of, it needs to be adopted company wide as it touches on all departments.
Ideally, a company would let me spend a few days to understand their processes, and I'd tell them how they can improve.
I would do the discovery phase for free, but I'm not sure how to phrase it. I fear using the word free, as I feel that changes the dynamics. And would set expectation for a cheap product down the line.
1) Work your network. Our first few customers were personal connections or connections of a strategic business angel of ours. Identify the ones that most feel the pain you're solving. I'm talking about specific roles in these companies, not the companies as an entity. For example, imagine you're building a tool that improves collaboration between marketers and devs, find out who needs this more: the CMO? the CTO? VP Eng? a project manager? Find your champion and deeply understand his pains.
2) Even if your technology solves a company wide process, I wouldn't sell it like this at the beginning. Touching many departments it's a pain in the ass for your champion: need to convince a lot of people, etc, so it's unlikely they'll do it. Optimize for your champion pains and find a reduced version of your product that solves his pains.
3) Engage your champions in the product discovery, make them feel like if they're also defining the features (but don't build exactly what they asks for!!). Once they're excited about it start selling them the grand vision so they can sell it internally involving more departments.
1) It provides quick cash so it removes the stress of having to look for money too soon.
2) Direct customer feedback while working with them on day to day problems. At this point you really want to understand your customers pains so later you can solve them with technology.
3) Initial validation/traction for your product. At the beginning, customers will value your consulting way more than your product, but for every new customer, try to provide less consulting and cover the rest with your product. Check if your customers are equally happy.