Get your first customers

The scrappy, unscalable work of going from zero to your first users.

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

  1. Video Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss | Talks at Google Chris Voss
  2. A short, concrete story from Steli Efti about following up with a single unresponsive investor 48 times before finally getting... LinkedIn Article How I followed up with an investor 48 times Steli Efti
  3. Gong analyzed tens of thousands of real sales calls and found that deals which felt like sure things often died quietly because... Gong Article Why Deals Fail to Close and How to Succeed Next Time Gong
  4. A practical reference you can keep open during calls: real objections, like it's too expensive or I need to think about it,... HubSpot Article Objection Handling: 44 Common Sales Objections & How to Respond Mark Burdon
  5. Two YC partners talk plainly about why founders who avoid rejection end up avoiding their customers altogether, and why the... Y Combinator Video Dalton & Michael: Successful founders are OK with rejection Y Combinator
  6. A concrete framework, from a long-running sales training school, for making sure every call ends with a mutually agreed,... Sandler Training Article How to Ensure Every Call Ends with Next Steps Frank Gustafson
  7. Jason Lemkin's argument is that a single first rep gives you almost no signal: you can't tell if a slow start is the person,... SaaStr Article · 10 min read When You Hire Your First Sales Rep, Just Make Sure You Hire Two Jason Lemkin
  8. Roberge built HubSpot's sales org from zero using data instead of instinct, and this is his framework for hiring, training, and... Mark Roberge Book · 250 pages The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million Mark Roberge
  9. Jason Lemkin runs through the specific, repeated mistakes he sees founders make when hiring too early or hiring the wrong... SaaStr Podcast · 35 min SaaStr Podcast #379: The Top 10 Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Their First Sales Team Jason Lemkin
  10. This is the practical, step by step version of the discovery call our answer says to run before you ever demo: what to ask, in... Close Article · ~15 min read 18 Steps to a Successful Discovery Call Close
  11. Our answer's second half is about treating sales as a repeatable pipeline, not one-off calls, and that needs somewhere to write... HubSpot Tool HubSpot Pipeline Management HubSpot
  12. Video · about 30 min The Cold Email Formula That Made Over $1,000,000 with Sam Parr Sam Parr
  13. A short, specific essay on why leading with the customer's need, not your product, is what makes a pitch land, with a simple... Dave Bailey Essay How to Sell the Problem Before Selling the Solution Dave Bailey
  14. Gong built this from analyzing hundreds of thousands of real sales emails, so the advice on what to put in a post-call recap,... Gong Article · 12 min read 6 Cold Email Follow-Ups that Speed Up Deals Gong
  15. When you need the actual words for the same-day recap email, this gives you five ready structures for different types of calls,... HubSpot Template · 8 min read 5 Recap Email Templates to Use After Connect, Discovery, and Demo Calls HubSpot
  16. Written for the founder who built the product and is now terrified of the word sales, this argues the skill set is closer to... Y Combinator Startup Library Essay Enterprise sales for hackers Y Combinator Startup Library
  17. This book's research finding is counterintuitive and directly useful here: the sales reps who win complex deals are not the... Amazon Book The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson
  18. Benn Stancil cofounded a company that sold into large enterprises, and this essay is an unusually honest account of how slow,... Benn Stancil (Substack) Essay So you want to sell to the enterprise? Benn Stancil
  19. Chargebee's first real customer was Freshworks, and they got in the door because a cofounder happened to live in the same... SeedToScale (Accel) Essay The Early Story of Chargebee: Why it's Better to Start with People, not Ideas SeedToScale (Accel)
  20. Once you find your champion, the deal usually stalls on a security questionnaire, and do you have a SOC 2 report is often the... Vanta Tool An actionable guide to SOC 2 compliance for startups Vanta
  21. This is the foundational text on separating people from the problem and negotiating on interests rather than positions, which... Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Book · 240 pages Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton
  22. Sabeer Bhatia, who sold Hotmail to Microsoft, traces his negotiating instincts back to haggling in vegetable markets in... tim.blog Essay · 8 min read How to Negotiate like an Indian - 7 Rules Tim Ferriss
  23. This is a short, practical guide to making invoice follow up a routine instead of an awkward one off, with an actual cadence:... Chaser Article · 7 min read 7 tips to collect unpaid invoices from customers Chaser
  24. If you are registered as an MSME and a customer sits on your invoice past 45 days, this government portal is the actual legal... Ministry of MSME, Government of India Tool MSME SAMADHAAN - Delayed Payment Monitoring System Ministry of MSME, Government of India

Show the next 24

The questions

Getting your first 10 customers 18

Do things that don't scale to get to ten.

How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me? 19 → Isn't doing things that don't scale a waste of time, shouldn't I automate from day one? 17 → Where do I find the very first people to even talk to about my product? 18 → Should I charge my very first customers or give it away free to get traction? 18 → How did real successful startups actually land their first customers? 20 → All 18 questions in Getting your first 10 customers →
Launching (again and again) 18

A launch is a tactic you repeat, not an event.

When is my product 'ready' to launch? 19 → My launch flopped and nobody cared, did I mess it up? 20 → How do I actually launch on Product Hunt and not embarrass myself? 15 → What's the best channel to launch on, Product Hunt, Reddit, Hacker News, or LinkedIn? 17 → How do I build up an audience before I launch so it's not just crickets? 18 → All 18 questions in Launching (again and again) →
Founder-led sales 18

Nobody sells your product better than you, yet.

I'm a technical founder and I hate selling, do I really have to do sales myself? 18 → How do I run a sales call without sounding like a pushy salesperson? 15 → How do I handle objections and prospects who go silent on me? 17 → When do I know it's time to hire a salesperson instead of doing it myself? 19 → What sales process should I follow if I've never sold anything before? 17 → All 18 questions in Founder-led sales →
Cold outreach & email 18

Start conversations with strangers who need you.

How do I write a cold email that people actually reply to? 19 → How many times should I follow up before giving up on a cold prospect? 18 → Cold email or cold LinkedIn/DM, what works better for reaching first customers? 19 → Is cold outreach even worth it, or is it just spam that hurts my brand? 19 → How do I build a targeted list of the right people to cold email? 18 → All 18 questions in Cold outreach & email →
Distribution & channel strategy 18

The channel is the strategy.

How do I figure out which distribution channel is right for my startup? 2 → Why does everyone say 'distribution is more important than product'? 2 → What are the actual distribution channels I can choose from? 1 → Should I focus on one channel or spread across many? 2 → How do the fastest-growing B2B companies find and scale their distribution? 2 → All 18 questions in Distribution & channel strategy →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →