The Bottleneck Index 2026: What Slow Follow-Up Costs, by Industry
We priced the leak across fifteen B2B industries. The numbers are larger than most founders expect, and they compound every quarter.
The JSU Bottleneck Index prices a single question, per industry: what does it cost you, per year, to be slow and unfocused at first contact? The method is deliberately simple, so you can run it on your own numbers.
The formula
Annual bottleneck equals your average deal value, times the winnable deals you lose per quarter to speed and aim, times four. That is it. No black box. The hard part is being honest about the second number.
Two failures, compounded
The leak is the product of two distinct failures. Speed: inquiries cooling past the window before a credible response. Aim: pages and messages that read every buyer identically. A team can be fast and generic, or precise and slow, and still leak. You need both fixed, which is why the engine is built per industry, because the clock and the criteria are set per industry.
Why the windows differ
Staffing cools in hours because reqs get filled by whoever answers the same day. Construction holds for days because bid cycles are long, but the list closes early, so the real window is shortlist formation, not response time. Same principle, different clock.
The bottleneck is rarely effort. It is speed and aim at the first touch.
Run it on your real numbers
The published figures are representative. The value of the Index is the method, not the averages. Take your average deal, your honest quarterly loss to slow and generic follow-up, and price your own leak. Then decide whether that number is worth closing.