Video · 35 min video

Founder-Led Sales for Y Combinator Demo Day

Sam Blond · YouTube Free Beginner

Founder-Led Sales for Y Combinator Demo Day

Sam Blond (former Brex CRO, now at Founders Fund) gave this talk to a live YC batch on exactly the question of closing your first customers yourself before demo day. It is blunt about why founders stall: they avoid the discomfort of pitching, not the mechanics of it. Watch it if you are still finding reasons to not pick up the phone yourself.

  • Most early founders avoid sales calls out of discomfort, not lack of skill
  • You need volume of real conversations before you can judge whether your pitch works
  • Closing the first handful of customers yourself is what makes a future hire coachable
Watch on YouTube ↗

The question it answers

  1. When do I know it's time to hire a salesperson instead of doing it myself?

Read with it

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  3. Pete Kazanjy is blunt about defining a tight ICP from real signal (who actually buys and closes) rather than from who you wish... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 90 minutes Founder-led sales | Pete Kazanjy (Founding Sales, Atrium) Lenny Rachitsky (host), with Pete Kazanjy
  4. This is the book most modern cold outbound advice quietly borrows from, so reading the source is worth it. Its "Cold Calling... Amazon Book · ~208 pages Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
  5. Jen Abel has coached over 300 early-stage founders through their first sales, so this is grounded in what actually happens when... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 1 hour 16 minutes The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (JJELLYFISH) Lenny Rachitsky with Jen Abel
  6. Blomfield (founder of Monzo and GoCarchless, now a YC partner) gives the concrete mechanics of closing that first B2B deal:... Y Combinator Startup Library Article · 25 min read The Sales Playbook for Founders Tom Blomfield
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