3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Name the channel for the first 25 before you start
Before committing, be able to say exactly how you would reach a first small group for free and how that route stretches to ten times as many. Whether your own appetite for the work should veto an idea is argued over, but the channel has to be nameable either way.
What both sides agree on
- Before committing, be able to name one free method of landing 25 customers and one method that scales to 250; failing to name even the first is grounds to bin the idea.
Where this splits
One member disqualifies an idea outright if it needs cold calls and demos you would hate doing, while interviews across two dozen B2B companies found cold outbound was the second most common route to their earliest customers.
1 claims against 1
Preetam Nath
Drop ideas needing sales work you hate
- 01Match the idea to the promotion work you can stand doing: if outbound calls and demos are required and you are bad at them and hate them, choose a different idea rather than forcing it.
Do not dismiss cold outbound, it works
Do not dismiss cold outbound. It is the second most common route these founders used to land their earliest customers.
What it returned
- 24
Drawn from one-to-one interviews with founders behind roughly 24 well-known B2B companies, among them Gong, Notion, Figma, Amplitude, Retool and Canva, plus newer ones such as Vanta, Stytch and Hex.
Storemapper's route was existing freelance clients for the first five customers, then working the Shopify discussion boards and recruiting people individually
Cold outreach and sales calls are given as the example of a required skill that should disqualify an idea, while content, SEO and social are cited as skills worth deliberately acquiring if they excite you.
Sources
- Chapter 2: What Makes A Good Micro-SaaS Idea? - Tyler TringasTyler Tringas · tylertringas.com · Have at least one channel for the first 25 and 250 customers · 2016-10-28
- How the most successful B2B startups came up with their original ideaLenny Rachitsky · lennysnewsletter.com · Finding a great B2B startup idea · 2023-08-08 · dissenting
- 42 Questions to Ask Before Starting a BusinessPreetam Nath · preetamnath.com · Does working on this business idea play to my strengths or weaknesses? · 2021-01-10
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in sales
- Charge for it before it exists6 unconnected
- Book the buyer calls before you write any code6 unconnected
- Package more of what you own into sellable slots6 unconnected
- Interview customers when sales stall, not buy traffic5 unconnected
- Borrow credibility from the customers you have5 unconnected
- Keep a named list of dream accounts and work it5 unconnected