Get your first customers

What founders use for get your first customers, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. The uncomfortable truth of enterprise sales in one line: the shorter the sales cycle, the likelier the win, and this piece... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read The Most Surefire Way I've Found to Win Enterprise Deals Anand Chopra-McGowan
2. This is the essay that forces the honest question underneath your idea: are you building a growth company or a good small... Paul Graham Essay · ~20 min read Startup = Growth Paul Graham
3. Most "validate your idea" advice was written for consumer apps, where a landing page and a few hundred signups tell you... Lean B2B Essay The 3 Ways Startup Founders "Sell" Their First Products in B2B Etienne Garbugli
4. Andrew Chen ran rider growth at Uber and now invests at a16z, so this is the canonical breakdown of how marketplaces get off... andrewchen.com Essay · ~20 min read Required reading for marketplace startups: The 20 best essays Andrew Chen
5. When there is no category report to point at, you have to build the number yourself, and this is the essay that teaches you... Andreessen Horowitz Essay · ~20 min read 16 More Startup Metrics Anu Hariharan, Frank Chen, Jeff Jordan
6. This is the sharpest write-up of the exact trap in your question: a past exit buys you trust from investors and hires, and the... NFX Essay · ~12 min read Second-Time Founders: How to Win and Avoid the Common Mistakes James Currier
7. For a two-sided marketplace, the first real decision is which side to define and win first, and this essay makes the case... NFX Essay · Long read (about 25 minutes) 19 Tactics to Solve the Chicken-or-Egg Problem and Grow Your Marketplace James Currier
8. This is the most concrete answer to which of your two customers to define first, built from interviews with 17 major... Lenny's Newsletter Article · Long read (about 20 minutes) How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business, Part 2: Cracking the Chicken-and-Egg Problem (Supply vs. Demand) Lenny Rachitsky
9. The biggest tracking mistake in an MVP is measuring everything and learning nothing. This Amplitude piece walks you through... Amplitude Article Every Product Needs a North Star Metric: Here's How to Find Yours Julia Sholtz
10. When people sign up and vanish, the first fork is: did they never hit the moment where the product clicked (activation), or did... Lenny's Newsletter Article How to determine your activation metric Lenny Rachitsky
11. Shapiro gives you a concrete framework you can apply the same afternoon: write a header that is fully descriptive of what you... julian.com Article · Long read, about 30 minutes Startup Handbook: Landing Page Copywriting Julian Shapiro
12. The reason technical founders write copy that experts respect but nobody acts on has a name, and this book coined it: the curse... Random House Book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Chip Heath and Dan Heath
13. This is the rare cold email guide that gives you a concrete structure instead of vague advice about being personal. It walks... Clay Article · ~20 min read B2B Cold Email Copywriting: The Complete Guide Mishti Sharma
14. Google tells you what to aim for, but Handley teaches you the actual craft of getting there: how to write something a human... Ann Handley Book Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content Ann Handley
15. Once you have even one happy customer, this is how you turn that into the proof that wins the next one. Amy Saper (who did... Uncork Capital on Medium Article · About a 12 minute read Let Your Customers Do Your Marketing: A Practical Guide to Creating Customer Case Studies and Testimonials Amy Saper (Uncork Capital)
16. This is the practical companion to the mindset stuff: it walks through actually turning an interested prospect into a paying... close.com Article Founder's Guide to Startup Sales: How to Build, Operate & Scale a Founder-Led Sales Process Nick Persico
17. This essay names the exact trap you are in: delays in launching are usually fear of being judged and excessive perfectionism... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups Paul Graham
18. India does not have one launch button, so this is a useful starting point precisely because it shows ten real companies... Medium Article · ~10 min read How These 10 Indian Companies Got Their First 1000 Customers Harkirat Singh
19. This is the piece that named the problem you are asking about: the difference between numbers that make you feel good and... The Blog of Tim Ferriss Article · 10 minute read Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics Eric Ries
20. Founders selling their own product almost always price too low, because they see every flaw in what they built and undercharge... Kalzumeus Essay · Long-form essay plus transcript, ~30 min read Ramit Sethi and Patrick McKenzie On Why Your Customers Would Be Happier If You Charged More Patrick McKenzie (patio11)
21. Most enterprise sales advice assumes you already have a brand and a sales team, and this guide is written for the opposite... WorkOS Blog Article A Guide to Enterprise Sales for Early-stage Founders WorkOS
22. Ash Rust invests at pre-seed and has watched dozens of founders let a friendly pilot drift into a free forever engagement. His... Medium (Sterling Road) Essay · 8 min read Startup Sales: How to Get Pilot Customers to Pay Ash Rust
23. The YC essay tells you the rules; this shows you real founders following (and bending) them. These are 13 actual cold emails... OpenVC Blog Article · 12 min read 13 Cold Email Examples Sent to VC Investors OpenVC
24. This is the one guide that walks the full technical stack in plain language: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain warmup timelines, and the... Smartlead Article Email Deliverability Guide: SPF, DKIM, Warmup and Everything That Gets You to the Inbox Satwick Ghosh (Smartlead)

Show the next 24