Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship’s Post

Absolutely, Misho. The need for customer or prospect input is undeniable. Whether it's through hypothetical scenarios or real-world interactions, understanding your #IdealCustomerProfile is crucial at every stage of any product. Thanks for sharing this insightful 3-step process. And Dr. Else van der Berg's suggestion about platforms like UserInterviews.com is spot on – For me, it's all about balancing time and resources. Ultimately, the key is to keep the conversation going with your #customers or #prospects. That's how we truly understand their needs and deliver value.

I'd rather eat broken glass than read another "TaLK to Your cuSToMERs" post. Well — WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ANY CUSTOMERS?! What if I’m an early-stage startup? What if I don't even have users? Usually, if you already have enough customers to talk to, it’s no longer a major challenge. The real struggle is talking to your POTENTIAL clients. Especially in B2B. Here’s how you do it. Stage 1 1. List all your target locations and industries. 2. Choose top 3 combinations of those. 3. Identify the decision-makers. 4. Find 50 of them on LinkedIn. Stage 2 5. Come up with 10 questions you'd ideally want these people to answer. 6. Now answer these questions YOURSELF while impersonating them. Now you have your ICP hypothesis. This allows you to compare your answers (hypothesis) with the real answers. Stage 3 7. Now the main part — Message those 50 people No sales. Absolutely none. Don’t do it. Your message needs to be short, casual, to the point and ONLY asking for help. Begin with something like: “Hey mate, can I ask for a quick advice?…” Then tell them that you’re building something and would appreciate their input on a quick 15 mins call. 15 mins is an easy commitment, it’s easy to sell. Then when you get on the meeting, if things flow well, ask if you can talk a few minutes more. You’d be surprised how many people are open to help you. P.S. - Who knows, you might actually end up closing some sales. — 🐍 Written by a human (me).

New ideas for those who want to talk to potential customers. 💡 Selling is just the last piece of a long process 💰 Especially in the B2B market ✅️ #startup #validation #startuptips #startupidea

How, as a startup CEO, do you balance focus with the concept of learning as much as possible? It’s all about prioritization and learning about the right thing at the right time. Unless you truly understand a market’s meaningful and scalable problem, focus on customer discovery. Don’t spend much time on marketing or fundraising or hiring. For god’s sake, DON’T BUILD ANYTHING. You don't even need to quit your job. Just talk to people. Until you are 100% confident you can close and retain qualified prospects, you shouldn’t be worried about scaling your inbound pipeline. You’ll just waste the bulk of those leads. You obvs need enough prospects to learn from, but now is not the time to figure out how to get hundreds of leads. Focus on closing early customers and building/iterating a product or service that retains them. Once you reach product/market fit and you feel like you’re running downhill when closing prospects, the last thing is getting qualified prospects into the top of the funnel at scale. Focus on finding the marketing channel with the highest LTV to CAC ratio. Armed with a problem that matters, the ability to close and retain qualified prospects and a funnel that reliably captures profitable leads, there’s only one thing left to do: focus on building a world-class team to scale the hell out of the company. At each stage, there are hundreds of things you can worry about, but there are at most two things you should focus on. That focus enables you to get to the next stage faster than if you prioritize multiple things at once. And because you’re doing it faster and with fewer resources (don’t staff anything that’s not solved or a priority), you accomplish more with far less capital, meaning you'll have a bigger safety net and more time to get it right. Here’s a handy and stupid mnemonic I came up with for a client this week: Figure out a meaningful problem Only think about: - Closing prospects and - Creating value Understand how to efficiently acquire leads Scale the fuck out of your business FUCCUS :)

When scaling a new startup - there are very few clues left behind. Little to no blueprint on what others have done before you to be successful. So you have to help create their formula of what success looks like. Trial and error. Knowing what to revise and when. Knowing what not to revise and keep the same. When most of your 1st meetings are duds, you may start questioning: - your product market fit - your BDR - your product - your messaging - your company - yourself it may not be any of that. You may be on the right track. It could be something as simple as a change in persona. It could be you’re not talking to the right person who feels the problem is big enough. Your messaging won’t ever land if delivered to the wrong person or even the wrong level. Carefully track personas of 1st meetings and measure which titles you resonate most with. Then see which deals tied to initial personas are progressing the fastest. Then double down and focus more of those titles with your cold outreach and see meetings multiply. Then ask your warm connections to introduce you to those titles at their company. It will feel like a new world once you crack that code. On the flip side - if you’ve tested every variation with every persona and are still hitting a wall And others around you have been having similar results, then the next persona you should hit up is a recruiter because the problem you’re trying to solve may not be big enough at this time. That should be your last resort though and after all options were exhausted. Because someone hired and believed in you to help figure it out. So figure it out and create the blueprint for others to follow for years to come. #sales #toponepercenter #academy

🛑 Stop Talking About Yourself and Start Solving Problems: The Key to Small Business Success As small business owners, we often fall into the trap of talking about our products, services, and achievements. But here's a crucial insight: Your prospects don't care about your business—they care about their own problems and how you can solve them. Shift focus from self-promotion to addressing the pain points of your target audience. Become a teacher, showing them that you understand their challenges and provide tangible solution that will make them look good. (BINGO, they'll love you) GOOD > Product-Focused Approach: "At Sales Surge Solutions, we automate sales processes and leverage AI to improve close rates by 68%." BETTER > Client-Centric Approach: "Imagine effortlessly attracting more qualified leads who align perfectly with your ideal customer profile, enabling you to focus on closing deals. This not only boosts your team’s productivity but also positions you as the driving force behind a remarkable 68% improvement in close rates." Remember, when you position your business as the answer to your prospects' problems, you build trust and foster meaningful connections. So, let's stop talking about ourselves and start making the prospect the hero of the story. #SmallBusinessTips #CustomerFirst #ProblemSolvers #startup

Connecting your prospect to a reference is like setting a blind-date. Here are 3 things you want to consider in the process: - What is the prospect’s need? Your solution might be specific, but there are plenty of different pain-points that can lead prospects to seek out your product. Make sure your reference can understand and relate to your prospect’s pain-point. - Is there basic compatibility? Matching the company size, making sure the individuals from both companies are in similar positions, and even anticipating the level of chemistry between the two personas can make a huge difference in the call’s impact. - Will there me mutual attraction? Setting a prospect up with a customer that you know makes a good first impression is key. If your prospect is a small startup - set them up with a startup in their stage. If your prospect is a unicorn - set them up with an established, stable business. Give them something to talk about! Deeto has a smart-matching tool that can help you make the right connections to ensure a smoother “date” and a higher win-rate. If that sounds interesting - reach out! #salesenablement #customerledgrowth #customeradvocacy #references

I've learned something big from sending cold emails: getting leads who aren't interested, meetings that go nowhere, and not making sales is actually really helpful for a startup 💎. This idea works in life too. It’s good to see what’s not working, but it’s even better to see what is and then make those parts even better. For example, when I first started, I tried to change the sales process I was taught to stand out. Big mistake. I lost a lot of potential clients that way. Going back to the original way worked much better. Now, I focus on improving what’s already working but I’m still open to trying new things. What do you think? Ever tried something new and had to go back to the old way? Drop a comment below. Let's talk about it. #ColdEmailing #StartupLife #LearnFromMistakes #KeepImproving #SalesTips #BusinessTalk

Most Startup Founders fail to personalize their messages And that's why prospects slip away from them Often I've seen well-meaning business owners Put blood, sweat and tears into writing to their prospect But in the end, it gets deleted and sometimes no one bats an eye to those messages Meanwhile, their competitors effortlessly capture leads left and right What's their secret you ask? It's the messaging, not the effort If your message feels like it could apply to anyone, then it connects with no one This mistake drives away your prospects and slows your business growth People are drawn to those who truly see them People who speak to their personal -Hopes -Dreams -And challenges Without personalizing your message to your prospects You give them the feeling of "you're an anonymous, faceless prospect" The solution is simple: -Show prospects you care about them -Show them you understand their challenges -Send a personalized message addressing each of them by their names Until you take the time to personalize your message You reduce your conversion rate Repost ♻️ and save this for later If you're struggling with personalizing your messages, send me a DM with "PM" let's craft personalize messages for your prospects PS: Do you currently personalize all your messages?

🤔 How do you design a good post-sales process at your startup? By including these elements: - Strategy: a clear view of who your ICP is, where you are going, what you want to achieve with success and support (may sound like an obvious question but try to answer it for your business - it might surprise you what you come up with and how it helps you understand what to do)   - Good handover and communication line with sales (no-brainer, but not easy to nail) - Good expectation management (customers know what to expect from your product but also the onboarding process etc when they sign on) - Fast response times, open communication (your product has a lot of flaws, don’t pretend that it doesn’t. Communicate openly about them) - Going the extra mile for your customers (avoid super rigid guidelines on what you do or don’t do) - Basic admin: all customer info clear and organised (err on the side of overdocumenting always) - Low-effort materials and resources (don’t spend hours on an explainer video if your UI is likely still changing 3x in the first year) - Learn from everything you do (saved the best for last) If you haven’t thought about these already for your startup, you're likely feeling some pain points with your customers. Start thinking about them. Be intentional about it. If you’d like to have a chat about how to tackle one of these, be in touch - I’m always happy to help you think through a question. —--------------- 🖖 I’m Anouk de Jonge, I help startups get set up to do good customer success If you found this post useful, don’t forget to follow 🔔 or 📩 DM me to get the conversation going