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independence4 unconnected · 2 more authors in those circles
standing

contested · 8 claims against 2

applies to

b2b, no audience needed

confidence

low

evidence

10 claims · 9 articles · 4 receipts

window

2015-07-21 → 2025-09-19

4 builders who never spoke to each other · contested

Onboard every new customer on a call yourself

Run the demos and setups personally and open each one by asking what made them come looking today. The calls tell you which features unblock real work and where your documentation assumes too much, though how much of your week to spend chasing users is disputed.

Where this splits

Several members contact every trial and every buyer by hand and credit it with retention and roadmap clarity; another found almost no user replied and that following each signup personally destroyed his focus for a week.

  1. side 01 · 8 claims

    Call every new customer and onboard them yourself

    Arvid Kahl · Cory Zue · Greg Kogan · Justin Jackson · Luke Thomas · Mehdi Kajbaf

    1. 1Onboard early customers by phone or screen share yourself instead of writing onboarding emails and automation code.
    2. 2Open each onboarding call with two questions: what was happening in their world that made them come looking today, and what they want to achieve with the product.
    3. 3Run demo and onboarding calls yourself and leave each one holding a handful of features that would immediately unblock that customer's job, then check which of them help the wider base.
    4. 4Contact every free trial signup by hand and ask them for feedback, immediately.
    5. 5Phone every early customer personally after they order. It is both your feedback channel and the thing that keeps you working.

  2. side 02 · 2 claims

    Hand chasing every signup wrecks your focus, few reply

    Cory Zue

    1. 1Do not count on cold emails to your own users for answers, because almost none of them reply.
    2. 2Watching individual sessions and emailing every user who tries your product will wreck your focus, so decide deliberately how much of that to do.

What it returned

  • $200

    The founder called every customer who ordered in the early days and took $200 rush orders himself at midnight.

  • Brennan Dunn calls automating onboarding the biggest mistake new SaaS companies make; Justin and Jon ran dozens of calls with Transistor's early-access users.

  • The founder reached out manually to anyone who started a trial and pressed them for feedback, describing the effort as shoving a snowball uphill but moving.

  • Zue's blast to everyone who had bought a license drew very few replies, while personalized outreach offering onboarding support produced several email exchanges and two phone calls.

Sources

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.

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.

More in sales

all sales plays

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.

963 corroborated plays to draw from · 3 a week

One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click, and the address is used for this and nothing else.