Explore / Find customers and sell
Area 04 of 13
Find customers and sell
From the first ten customers to a sales motion: who to sell to, how to reach them, how to close.
422 answers From Starting Up, D2C, GTM, and How Founders Use AI Searched most: CRM, field service software, AI meeting notes
Starting Up150 answers
Getting your first 10 customers
19
- How do I get my first client as a freelancer?
- How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me?
- Isn't doing things that don't scale a waste of time, shouldn't I automate from day one?
- Where do I find the very first people to even talk to about my product?
- Should I charge my very first customers or give it away free to get traction?
Launching (again and again)
22
- How do I publish my app on the Apple App Store?
- How do I publish my app on the Google Play Store?
- How do I build a waitlist before I launch?
- How do I write a press release for my business?
- How do I actually launch on Product Hunt and not embarrass myself?
Founder-led sales
19
- How do I write a business proposal that wins the work?
- What should my very first sales pitch actually say, and how long should it be?
- How do I follow up after a good sales call without being annoying or looking desperate?
- How do I sell to enterprises and large companies as a tiny unknown startup they have never heard of?
- I'm a technical founder and I hate selling, do I really have to do sales myself?
Cold outreach & email
18
- How do I write a cold email that people actually reply to?
- What tools should I use to send and track cold outreach without spamming?
- How many times should I follow up before giving up on a cold prospect?
- Cold email or cold LinkedIn/DM, what works better for reaching first customers?
- Is cold outreach even worth it, or is it just spam that hurts my brand?
Distribution & channel strategy
23
- How do I do email marketing, step by step?
- How do I make a marketing plan for my business?
- How do I grow a small business, online and on social media?
- How do I market my startup?
- How do I get press coverage for my startup?
Selling to government
21
- What is GeM and how do I get my product listed on it?
- How do I actually sell to the government, where do I find the buyers?
- How do government tenders and procurement actually work for a tiny startup?
- Do I need certifications or empanelment to sell to a ministry?
- I'm a DPIIT-recognised startup, what procurement relaxations do I actually get?
Selling to enterprises (B2B)
22
- How do I sell my startup?
- How do I land my first enterprise customer when nobody has heard of us?
- How long is a B2B sales cycle and how do I not run out of money waiting?
- Who do I actually sell to inside a big company, and how do I find the decision-maker?
- They want a free pilot, should I do it?
Sales, CRM & support tools
6
- Which software should a field service or contracting business use for jobs, quotes and scheduling?
- Which e-signature tool should I use to sign PDFs and contracts, free or paid?
- What are the best alternatives to Calendly, including free ones?
- Which appointment booking app should a small business use, such as a salon or clinic?
- Which AI chatbot should I add to my website?
D2C30 answers
Pre-launch & building an audience
6
- How do I build an audience before I even have a product ready to sell?
- Should I collect free email signups or charge a small deposit for my waitlist?
- How many people do I actually need on my waitlist before I launch in India?
- What's the fastest way to start a WhatsApp/Instagram following before I even have inventory?
- Which one pre-launch channel should I actually focus on instead of trying everything at once?
Your first 100 orders
6
- Where do my first 100 orders actually come from if I have no brand yet?
- Is it worth personally delivering or calling my first customers instead of just shipping and moving on?
- I have zero following and almost no ad budget - how do I still get to 100 orders?
- Which single channel should I put all my energy into for the first 100 orders?
- How do I know if my first 100 orders actually mean I have product-market fit, or if I just got lucky?
Launch strategy & drops
6
- What exactly is a 'drop' and should my brand even bother with limited drops?
- How do I plan a launch day so I don't run out of stock or crash my own site?
- Should I do one big Day-1 launch or roll the product out in phases?
- What can a small Indian brand actually learn from Supreme and boAt's launch playbooks?
- What's the right cadence for repeat drops - weekly, monthly, or seasonal?
Influencer & UGC seeding
6
- What exactly is influencer/UGC seeding, and how is it different from paying for a sponsored post?
- How many creators should I seed to for a first wave, and what should I budget?
- How do I actually run my first product-seeding campaign, step by step?
- How do I find creators to seed to before I can afford Kofluence or a UGC platform?
- What can I learn from how Mamaearth used influencers and word-of-mouth before it had a big budget?
Founder-led selling & community
6
- Should I make myself the face of the brand, or keep the brand separate from my personal identity?
- Is it actually worth me personally replying to every DM and WhatsApp message in the early days?
- What does 'founder-led selling' actually look like day to day in the first few months?
- Is it worth me personally showing up in my brand's WhatsApp group or Instagram comments, or should I hand that off early?
- At what point do I need to stop being the one doing all the selling myself?
GTM211 answers
What GTM actually is
16
- What does 'go to market' actually mean? People say GTM constantly and I still cannot define it.
- I am a founder and I have never sold anything in my life. Where do I actually start?
- How do I tell whether our GTM is genuinely working or we just got lucky with a few deals?
- What is the real difference between product-led, sales-led and everything in between, and which one are we?
- When do I stop selling myself and hire the first person, and what kind of person should that be?
GTM roles and career paths
16
- SDR, AE, AM, growth, PMM, RevOps: what do these people actually do all day?
- I want to start a GTM career in India but I have zero sales experience. What is the realistic first job?
- I have been an SDR for about 18 months. How do I actually make the jump to AE?
- I am the first GTM hire at a startup. What is my job really, and how do I not get fired in 12 months?
- How do I decide which GTM roles to hire, and in what order?
Who you sell to
16
- What is an ICP and how is it different from a persona? People use both words for the same thing.
- We have about fifteen customers and they are all different. How do I find an ICP out of that?
- How do I qualify a deal properly instead of just hoping the enthusiastic person can buy?
- Half my pipeline is outside our ICP because those are the leads that came in. Do I chase them?
- How do I get the team to actually use the ICP instead of nodding at a slide and then doing what they want?
Positioning and messaging
16
- What is positioning in plain English, and why does everyone insist we have got it wrong?
- How do I write a one-line description of what we do that a normal person actually understands?
- Our positioning reads fine on the website but every rep says something different on calls. How do I fix that?
- How do I build a sales deck that is not just a tour of our features?
- We are changing our positioning. How do I roll it out without breaking the pipeline mid-quarter?
Outbound that works
23
- How do I find B2B clients?
- Which LinkedIn automation tool is safe and worth using?
- How do I verify an email address before I send to it?
- Which lead generation tool should a small business use?
- I have never sent a cold email in my life. Where do I even start?
Inbound, content and demand gen
20
- How do I generate leads for my business?
- Which webinar platform should a small business use?
- Everyone says do content. What does inbound actually mean for a startup with no audience?
- I write blog posts and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong?
- How do I decide what to write about so it brings in buyers and not just traffic?
Running a sales process and closing
21
- How do I create a sales funnel for my business?
- How do I make a good product demo or demo video?
- Which proposal software should an agency or small business use?
- How do I close a sale?
- I have a call booked with a real prospect tomorrow. What do I do on it?
Partnerships and alliances
16
- What does a partnerships person actually do all day?
- Referral, tech partner, reseller, SI: someone offered us a partnership, which one is it?
- A much bigger company wants to partner with us. Should we say yes?
- I have just been handed partnerships as my job. What do I do in the first 90 days?
- How do I get a partner's reps to actually mention us in their deals?
Channel, resellers and marketplaces
17
- IndiaMART, TradeIndia or JustDial: which brings better B2B leads?
- What is a channel partner, and why would a software company hand over 30% of the price?
- Is our product even ready for resellers?
- What is a cloud marketplace and why does everyone tell us to list on AWS?
- App store, app directory, cloud marketplace: which of these actually matters for us?
RevOps and the GTM stack
18
- Which CRM should a small business use, and which are free?
- Which CRM should a real estate agent use?
- What does a RevOps person actually do all day?
- I just joined as the first ops hire and the CRM is a total mess. Where do I start?
- I am a founder selling this myself. What GTM tools do I actually need right now?
GTM teardowns
16
- How did Freshworks sell to the US from Chennai without a US sales team?
- How did Zoho build a global GTM engine without ever raising money?
- What did Postman do differently to get developers to adopt before it ever sold anything?
- How did BrowserStack get its first millions in revenue almost entirely on word of mouth?
- How did Zerodha become India's largest broker with no ads and no sales team?
How great operators think
16
- What did Slack's "We don't sell saddles here" memo actually change about how they sold?
- What does April Dunford say most teams get wrong about positioning?
- What does Gong's call data actually say top sellers do differently in discovery?
- When should you add a sales team on top of a self serve product, and how do you avoid breaking it?
- When does a founder stop selling personally, and why do the best ones hire two reps instead of one?
How Founders Use AI31 answers
Sales Prospecting
13
- Why use AI to find and qualify leads (Clay, Apollo + AI workflows)?
- How do founders personalize cold outreach at scale without being creepy?
- What does an AI-assisted founder-led sales motion look like end to end?
- How do I define my ICP and build my first lead list with AI?
- Should I buy an AI SDR, or keep prospecting human?
Customer Support
6
- How do startups set up AI support (Fin, Decagon, custom bots) in a week?
- Why can AI now handle most support tickets, and should it?
- How do founders use support conversations as product research with AI?
- What does AI support actually cost, and how should a founder think about the ROI?
- How do you stop an AI support agent from hallucinating and breaking customer trust?
CRM & Sales Calls
12
- Which AI notetaker should I actually pick: Granola, Fathom, Fireflies, or Otter, and what will it cost?
- What does an affordable AI sales stack look like for an early-stage Indian startup?
- How do founders use AI notetakers and call analysis (Granola, Fireflies, Gong-style tools) to close more deals?
- Why let AI update the CRM, draft follow-ups, and forecast pipeline?
- Do I need a CRM at the pre-seed stage, and should I pick an AI-native CRM like Attio over HubSpot or Zoho?
On the AI mapAs of 29 October 2026
- Prospecting and salesThese tools find the right buyers, fill in their contact details, write and send outreach, and record and analyse sales calls. 7 tools
- Customer support agentsThese AI agents answer customers on chat, email, WhatsApp and phone, resolve common requests, and hand the hard ones to a person. 7 tools
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