5 stories
Finding your first customers is the hardest thing you’ll do in the early days as a founder. You have no reputation, your product doesn’t work, and you need to convince strangers to give you their time.
The best sales calls don’t feel like sales calls at all — they’re discovery sessions. When you treat early conversations as continuous learning loops, you might not close deals right away, but you’ll uncover something far more valuable: direction.
Your first 10 customers will shape your company more than your next 1,000. Choose them carefully — the wrong ones will pull your product in conflicting directions before it’s even found its footing.
The founder’s instinct is to hire sales too soon — but the real advantage comes from selling yourself until the motion is repeatable.
Losing Carta early at my first startup taught me a painful but lasting lesson: sales isn’t optional for founders—it’s the fastest way to discover the truth about your market.
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