Your Personal Experience is Better than TAM.wav

Speakers: Willy Schlacks (Co-CEO & Co-Founder at EquipmentShare)

Key Points

• Do everything it takes to make the first sales (flowers, gifts, dinner, etc.). You should accept the fact that you will most likely need to lose a lot to get the first customers in the door. Sales in the early days are very relationship driven. You have to sell the founding team not just the product. In the early days you have to drag customers through the door and really sell your vision. As a founder you will have to manage sales until roughly $1M ARR then start building a sales team.
• Sales and ops are always divided - should never mix. Focus on sales until you unlock demand and then move back to ops.
• Your experience starts day 1 after starting your company. You are back to infancy with your startup. You have to learn from your customers regardless of your prior experience. You will need to continue iterating and A/B testing sales to find your wedge.