From this video, I learnt that 'Startups don’t take off by themselves, they take off because founders make them take off.
As a founder, I need to learn how to sell. Learning the tactics of sales is just one side however, and it all boils down to ME. A daunting proposition because I don't think I am good at selling; thankfully, it is something that can be learned.
The start-up curve shows that the founders are the ones responsible for driving the startup; they have to want it.
Knowing how to sell and knowing my customers are different sides of the same coin. A founder can't sell unless they know their customer.
Learning to sell gives the founder control over their destiny. A founder must learn to solve problems for their customers.
The video describes how to reach out to customers via email (sales email):
The email should be short, be clear, address the problem and introduce the founder. Social proof can be given to explain why the team is impressive; examples would be best. It recommends that successes are described, a link to the website is given and a call to action should also be there.
It goes on to explain that finding the first customers should be the easiest. Hence, the best place to start would be personal networks, selling to other start-ups rather than big companies (they have more bureaucracy). Also, to get a high conversion rate, more emails should be sent out, as 95% of customers will not be early adopters.
That was an interesting statistic. It helps to set expectations so that one is not easily derailed or put off by the level of responses one may receive.
Charging for your product
It's attractive to offer things for free; however, if founders don't charge, there will be no customer and no company!
One could offer a money-back guarantee instead of offering the product for free.
Thinking about my idea, I'd need to consider a charging structure.
It's always a good idea to track the data for future analysis; this will help the company see the number of conversions over time.
The last advice was to 'do things that don’t scale'; that is, don’t jump straight to using Google SEO, spending huge amounts of money for advertising when you're just starting out.
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