Rendered at 18:30:47 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
aurenvale 1 days ago [-]
Many founders start their customer search with cold email, LinkedIn, and prospecting tools. But the first 10 customers rarely come from a tool. It starts somewhere else: your network, showing up in person, and a willingness to do things that don't scale.
In this episode of Startup School, YC Visiting Partner Max Kolysh draws on dozens of YC founder stories to explain how to identify the right buyers, start conversations, and turn them into your first customers.
I guess I am very atypical.
My first customer came from Reddit outreach, and also my second, and third and so on. None came from personal network (never really even tried that, maybe i should)
I know its going to stop being so effective at at some point, but so far so good.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
lynguist 7 hours ago [-]
He says to use Reddit in the video! That was one of my takeaway messages.
backend_dev82 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, but he says customers 4-10, not the first and the second the third, he says use personal network for that, right?
Beestie 6 hours ago [-]
Imagine 3 states of a potential customer:
1. They have no knowledge of your product/service;
2. They are aware of it and consider it valuable and correctly priced;
3. They actually buy it.
Digital media (email/LinkedIn/Insta/X/etc.) moves people from 1 to 2.
Moving people from 2 to 3 ain't gonna happen with "awareness." You have to get in front of someone and close the sale. There is a lot of stuff in the store that I think is good and fairly priced. But I don't buy the entire store every time I visit. But, if someone in the store shows me one item and gives me a good story, pretty good chance I'm walking out with it. One item out of thousands. Why? Because a human moved me from 2 to 3.
Water doesn't boil at 100° - you have to add a little bit more energy to initiate a phase change. No different.
kristianp 19 hours ago [-]
Why the first 10? These tips might work for the first 20, 30 or even 50 customers, depending on how much time/money they require.
dang 39 minutes ago [-]
Ok, we've taken 10 customers out of the title above.
hyperhello 19 hours ago [-]
Who said it was base 10?
tjhei 19 hours ago [-]
Every base is base 10.
kristianp 17 hours ago [-]
I didn't specify base 10!
rationalist 16 hours ago [-]
Base 3628800 is pretty unusual, I wouldn't have specified it either.
In this episode of Startup School, YC Visiting Partner Max Kolysh draws on dozens of YC founder stories to explain how to identify the right buyers, start conversations, and turn them into your first customers.
I know its going to stop being so effective at at some point, but so far so good. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Digital media (email/LinkedIn/Insta/X/etc.) moves people from 1 to 2.
Moving people from 2 to 3 ain't gonna happen with "awareness." You have to get in front of someone and close the sale. There is a lot of stuff in the store that I think is good and fairly priced. But I don't buy the entire store every time I visit. But, if someone in the store shows me one item and gives me a good story, pretty good chance I'm walking out with it. One item out of thousands. Why? Because a human moved me from 2 to 3.
Water doesn't boil at 100° - you have to add a little bit more energy to initiate a phase change. No different.