How to Succeed with Founder Led Sales

Today’s post is a Twitter (sorry, X) thread from Sam Blond (Founder’s Fund / former CMO at Brex) I bookmarked back in February. Too good not to share:

How to succeed with founder led sales:

Last week, @garrytan was nice enough to invite me to his home to speak with the current YC batch. The most common topic was founders figuring out how to close the first set of customers in time for demo day.

Depending on the specific situation, my advice was flavors of the concepts I describe below. First, if you’re an early stage founder doing your best to close your first customers, find comfort this is the way almost every successful tech company starts acquiring customers.

There is no one in the world better than you at selling the vision of your product and company. Sales is hard. Keep going. Hopefully the below is helpful.

1. Qualify the buyers level of interest.

At the end of the first call/demo, after you’ve described the problem you’re solving, and shown your solution to the problem, ask them something like: “how high of a priority is this for you?”

Or: “how impactful would this be for you?” Focus your efforts on those that answer high priority. You’re likely wasting time on the others. If you’re consistently hearing this is a low priority or low impact, it’s signal you haven’t found p/m fit and should adapt your offering.

2. Always close for the next step.

Whenever you get done with a meeting, do your best to have your next meeting on the calendar and specific action items that will happen between now and that next meeting. Avoid things like “I’ll follow up with some information and we can go from there.”

Or “let’s talk in a week or two after you’ve had time to discuss this internally.” In my experience those deals often go nowhere. If you’re not closing the deal, at least close for the next step

3. Be prescriptive on how to buy your product.

Many founders expressed concern around things like when and how to ask for money, introductions to decision makers, etc. Take the initiative to educate your buyer on how they should buy your product. Create a document that outlines the happy path for how a customer should onboard and buy. Share it with the buyer. Customize it for their specific buying process. Frame it as “this is how we’ve seen others successfully deploy (company name).”

For example:

• Step 1: product demo and qualification.
• Step 2: demo with all stakeholders.
• Step 3: 2 week free trial (outline what happens during the trial).
• Step 4: if we deliver on our promise during the trial, move forward with pilot program at 50% discount to list price.

By outlining these steps you’ve solved for the concerns highlighted above. Also, you can adjust depending on the situation…ie if you’re already talking to the decision maker, you can skip step 2.

4. Create fomo.

“We’re accepting 10 companies in this pilot program. 6 of the 10 spots are filled. We expect the other 4 to fill quickly. You’d be perfect for the program based on our conversations. Please let us know your level of interest so we’re able to plan accordingly.”

5. Optimize for active paying customers, not price perfection.

For your first set of customers it’s more important that you are charging than what you’re charging. Come up with what you believe is a reasonable long term price for your solution.

Discount to where you need to in order to win for your first several customers. You can even ask: “what would something like this be worth to your business?” to get an idea of a price point that will win the deal.

6. When possible, meet your prospective customers in person.

Even if it’s not scalable. You’ll greatly increase the likelihood the deal closes by building a relationship with the buyer. Many of the YC founders I was talking to were selling to other tech companies in SF. Default to meeting those people in their office or a coffee shop if you can.

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Calling all college dropouts and sci fi scientists - here's a pre-seed lead you have to know!

This week's findfunding.vc spotlight is on Danielle Strachman from 1517Fund.

Danielle is:

• 🌁 Bay Area based
• 🧵 Has a great pinned tweet on the best way to cold outreach
• 🎶 Used to play clarinet competitively and is passionate about the arts
• 🐱 Loves animals and her cats are trick trained

Amongst founders, Danielle is known for being proactive and resourceful, matched only by her commitment to maintaining a high standard of integrity.

Make sure to:

• ✉️ Pitch her at info@1517fund.com
• 🐦 Follow her on Twitter at dstrachman

Until next week,

Pascal