How to Get Your First Customers (Startup School)
Do things that don't scale
Founders should learn how to do sales
- Founders should know customers
- You should never hire a sales team until you can do sales yourself
- You should solve customers' problems
Build the first simple version, start selling it to customers.
How to write a good email
- It should be short, 6-8 sentences.
- Clear language, no jargon
- Address the customer's problem
- No HTML
- Mention that you are a founder
- Include a link to the website
- Ask for a call
| Stages in founder speak | Stages in sales speak |
|---|---|
| List of potential customers | Prospecting |
| Email/message them | Qualification |
| Schedule meetings | Sales call |
| Disclose price/close them | Proposal mode |
| Revenue | Sale |
Create a spreadsheet, write names, job titles of people you want to reach out to.
Your first customers should be your easiest
Make sales process as easy for yourself as possible, reach out to the easiest customers. Don't be afraid of letting them go.
- You should have a big pipeline of customers
- Sell to your network
- Sell to startup (big companies have a lot of bureaucracy)
- 95% of people are not early adopters — avoid them, reach out to the ones who like new things
Charging the first customers
Customers should pay, if they don't pay then they are not customers.
If they don't want to pay — move on. Don't be scared of asking the first customers to pay.
You charge them, if they are not happy — you can pay them back.
Common mistakes
- You don't know your sales conversion rate — use CRM to track it.
- Track data. How many emails you send, how many people open emails, how many calls, demos you have.
- Outbound sales is ultimately a numbers game.
- Not enough outreach. You can't close 5 customers from 10 leads.
- Most founders don't work their way backwards — they don't get enough sales done.
- Believe that something else but sales will solve your sales problems.