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Merge's Path to Product-Market Fit: The Importance of Founder-led Sales

First Round Review Free Intermediate

Merge's founders sent hundreds of cold emails over six months, not to pitch but to understand who actually had the integrations problem they were solving. It's a good example of using cold outreach for discovery first, closing comes later once you actually know who to talk to.

• Cold outreach at this stage was for learning, not selling, they talked to 100 different companies.
• The goal of the first message wasn't a demo, it was a real conversation about the problem.
• Understanding the market came before scaling any single outreach channel.