Article · video walkthrough

Sales Safari in Action

Amy Hoy · Stacking the Bricks (Amy Hoy) Free Intermediate

This is the best method for the exact job of learning an industry's language when you cannot yet get face time with people in it. Hoy shows how to lurk in the forums, reviews, and comment threads where your audience already talks, and mine their real words, pains, and workarounds. Do this and you will start speaking the vocabulary before anyone can tell you are new.

  • Find the watering holes where your audience already complains in public
  • Collect their exact words, pains, and existing workarounds
  • Observation at scale can precede one-on-one interviews
Open on stackingthebricks.com ↗

It answers 16 questions

  1. I'm a technical founder and I hate selling, do I really have to do sales myself?
  2. What's the best channel to launch on, Product Hunt, Reddit, Hacker News, or LinkedIn?
  3. How do I build up an audience before I launch so it's not just crickets?
  4. What sales process should I follow if I've never sold anything before?
  5. How do I find my first 10 customers to sell to when I have zero network and no inbound?
  6. How many people should I actually reach out to before I expect to close my first 10 paying customers?
  7. What should my very first sales pitch actually say, and how long should it be?
  8. I'm a solo technical founder and hate selling. How do I get my first customers without becoming a salesperson?
  9. How do I launch in India where there's no single 'Product Hunt moment' that reaches Indian founders and buyers?
  10. How do I validate an idea in an industry I have no background in?
  11. How do I do user research when I'm building something nobody has seen before and can't describe what they want?
  12. How do I get customers who don't already know me when I have no brand, no audience, and no case studies yet?

And 4 more across the hub.

Read with it

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  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
  4. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky
  5. The authoritative handbook on founder-led sales, written for technical/first-time sellers building B2B SaaS. Readable free... foundingsales.com Book · book (~400 pages) Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook Peter Kazanjy
  6. When your first ten will come from cold outreach, this guide gives you the full mechanics: building a target list, qualifying,... Close Article · Multi-chapter guide The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales Steli Efti
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