Win Better Clients by Going Narrow

Jan 21

Written By David Hoos

Interview: How NorthBuilt Escaped “Yes To Everything” and Built a Values-Led Niche in Midwest Manufacturing

Behind the Agency Podcast with Chris Morbitzer, CEO of NorthBuilt

Watch

Prefer the highlights? Key takeaways and summary below.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

Core pain: Saying yes to everything turns you into a replaceable vendor that gets shopped on price.
Unexpected insight: “Quality” isn’t positioning. Buyers don’t care about your craft unless it ties to a business outcome.
Framework: Chris uses a simple filter: start with industry problems first, then match them to what you solve, then differentiate in that intersection.
Mistake to avoid: Scaling your team for “future demand” in a services business like it’s a SaaS company.
Second mistake to avoid: Treating values as a poster on the wall instead of a decision system (clients, hires, vendors, all of it).
Notable tactic: Choose vendors based on values alignment (he switched CRMs to CapsuleCRM because trust mattered more than features).
Real-world impact: Narrowing to Midwest manufacturing + “100% US” made sales/marketing clearer, increased trust, improved lead quality, and made event marketing actually make sense.
Go-to-market change: Instead of trying to market everywhere, he goes deep in a few industry associations and becomes “the tech/AI person in the room.”

Meet the Guest

Chris Morbitzer is the CEO of NorthBuilt, a custom software agency that builds, supports, and maintains software applications—especially for Midwest mid-market manufacturers. After learning the hard way that “yes to everything” leads to chaos, low differentiation, and painful cash crunches, Chris now helps values-aligned companies get reliable software built by a team that understands their world.

(Before NorthBuilt, Chris and his co-founder Aaron were software developers who had worked in other agencies and wanted to do the work with more care and excellence.)

Episode Summary

1. From Craft Coterie to NorthBuilt

NorthBuilt started in early 2020 (right as COVID hit) under the original name Craft Coterie. The idea was craftsmanship: better code, more care, higher quality.

The market response was basically: “Cool… but I can’t see your code. I just need the app to work.”

That was the wake-up call: they were differentiating on something buyers couldn’t really feel.

2. The main tension: generalists get commoditized

They took whatever paid—mobile apps, browser games, random integrations—because the work was there (especially during early COVID contractor demand).

But it came with two costs:

Constant context switching meant they couldn’t go deep.
No industry focus meant they couldn’t become trusted advisors—just hourly labor.

“We were just the software vendor… always being shopped and compared.”

3. Their unique way of solving it: specialize around outcomes + values

Once they noticed a pattern—better delivery and fit in manufacturing and life sciences—they leaned into it. Not just “we do software,” but “we understand your world.”

The differentiator that landed was 100% US-based, which mattered to their Midwest manufacturing audience (because many of those companies also compete on “made in America”).

That’s important because it’s not a generic “we’re great” claim. It’s a belief their buyers already have.

4. Framework: how they found the right positioning

Chris described the consultant-led process in plain steps:

Start with the industry’s big problems (don’t start with software).
Identify where those problems intersect with what you’re actually good at solving.
Decide what makes you meaningfully different inside that intersection.
Build messaging by using the customer’s language, not agency language.

He said it created a full “messaging architecture” they reuse everywhere.

5. The cringe moment: scaling like SaaS

They grew fast and assumed they were headed for a hockey stick. So they staffed up from 2 people to nearly 10 in a year.

Then Chris came back from parental leave, checked the financials, and realized they were out of money. They cut back down to a team of 3.

The lesson: services businesses grow, but they don’t scale like products—and getting bigger can actually make margins worse.

6. Where the founder still belongs: values and market presence

Chris got super direct about a founder’s job after the reset: be the one who guards the values and shows up where your people are.

They stopped making money-first decisions and built around three values:

Family
Craftsmanship
Conscientiousness

He even applies that to vendors (including choosing CapsuleCRM over bigger tools).

7. Hiring, scaling, and go-to-market lessons

Once positioning got tight, the day-to-day GTM got simpler:

Pick a few highly specific industry associations.
Don’t just sponsor—participate deeply (committees, boards, volunteering).
Become a familiar face over years.
Prefer smaller rooms where you can be “the expert in the room” (especially around tech/AI).

He summarized it well: serve a few thousand people deeply instead of trying to market to everyone shallowly.