Viviana Faga’s Post

I’d also add that it is very easy to build a value-oriented demo script using your favorite LLM-powered chat tools. For example, you could say, “I am a founder of X company, our product helps solve Y problem for Z customer—please help me build a 15-minute demo script.” A demo script, in addition to a quick pitch, can be refined over time. I often see too many ‘feature walkthroughs’ in the early stages that fall flat or leave too much to the imagination of investors, customers, advisors, etc. An early demo of your product or concept can go a long way in soliciting incredibly helpful feedback and building an early base of net promoters. 🚀

Viviana Faga such good advice. It’s what we tell our founders. It’s what I did as a SaaS founder. Founder lead sales is crucial. One thing that I’ve learned is that as the founder are you aren’t seen as a “salesperson” to your prospect. You are the founder. The expert in your domain. You are asking for advice. For a chance. For feedback. To see if there’s a use case for your invention. It can get you in the door easier with the right approach.

One of the quickest ways to learn is to build and sell simultaneously, from the start. I.e. we just learned we could build a single feature (that works within a value flow we’ve built) that will differentiate us greatly from a main competitor. Selling is collecting feedback from you potential customers.

Great question, Viviana Faga. Here's a few lessons I've learned when implementing a "selling while building" approach: -My customers annual goals / metrics, and how would our technology would help achieve those objectives... which changed how we measured success, communicated our value proposition, and adjusted pricing. -How my customer would integrate our unique data source into existing systems and workflows... which changed our product strategy and data viz. -How my customer view the competitors, which was NOT alternative technologies but rather the inertia of the status quo... which changed how we aligned our product to solve urgent problems.

Love this Viviana Faga. Selling while building is an incredible growth technique. For me, it has taught (a) precision on product, (b) clarity of roadmap - being able to say we are GREAT at X (in our case, legal tasks that require web knowledge because we build our own web browsing tech) versus good at Y but if you need Z go to others - it build trust with customers and makes them more likely to buy, and (c) what makes customers eyes' light up. When you're in a demo, and they say "tell me more about that" or "oh wow, show me again" - you immediately know to double down on that thing in development. It's been one of the most rewarding things I've done as a founder! Cc Arnie Gullov-Singh the world's best early stage sales coach.

With my previous startup, I waited too long to start selling - it was an costly rookie mistake. Now I'm selling with no product to get revenue in the door early, then I'll figure out what product needs to be built.

Ruthlessly isolate the absolute value prop when the customer is interested to know what gets prioritized on the roadmap. It has been surprising how few features actually make it over the line.

Sell before the build.

The classic Reid Hoffman line - if you're not embarrassed by your first product, you've launched too late.

Good insight!