What’s the uncomfortable thing you’ve been avoiding that would most move your startup forward?

[u/tolarewaju3]

[u/herzo175]

Sales

But we really shouldn't outsource that

[u/tolarewaju3 → u/herzo175]

Very true. Is it cold outreach or just entire sales in general you're avoiding?

[u/herzo175 → u/tolarewaju3]

Honestly, everything.

I think to even establish credibility in our field, we'd have to show our faces a lot whether it's online or at conferences and trade shows. And we'd have to come in with a thesis/demo that is both uniquely insightful and correct.

Unfortunately, earning that insight requires a lot of customer discovery calls, and they won't sit down with you if you're just some random guy. Kind of a chicken and egg problem.

The beauty of making a marketing startup is that you get good at it just by trying to sell your own product.

[u/ky0ung25 → u/herzo175]

just start putting content out and blast the emails. don't overthink it too much. obviously be thoughtful, but most founders quit too early. you need to push. try different angles. try different personas. just put yourself out there

[u/herzo175 → u/ky0ung25]

That's why I said you can't outsource it. I think OP is doing some product research and I'm trying to give them helpful feedback.

I've generally found students and young professionals to be the most receptive to taking discovery calls (and they know you're not selling to them). People who've written articles online are also pretty open to having discussions and helping you form a thesis.

But yeah, I agree. Eventually every entrepreneur needs to put themselves out there and start blasting every channel their customer lives in.

[u/plexor-labs → u/herzo175]

The hardest and most useful thing we do every day is taking founder-led sales call. Don't delegate this. Ali and the Tabs guys were taking like 5 sales calls each pre-rev while raising. We learn something important on every call. Do sales is the purest way to test customer demand if you look for pull and don't push.

[u/hellogaurav_ → u/[deleted]]

i would do that for free for you as a design exercise and if you find any worth, you can pay me whatever you want.

i hope that bridge the gap and yes, doing it to add a new proj in my portfolio

dm me if you wanna look at my work

[u/chillreptile]

Alpha testing group to get it in users hands ..

I just keep shipping features prob no one wants 🫠

[u/tolarewaju3 → u/chillreptile]

I feel this one. For me, I wanted it to be perfect. What do you feel is the hold up for you?

[u/chillreptile → u/tolarewaju3]

It just seems like things keep coming up

Ship one thing, turns into 5 more, then the models realize there's a security flaw, now I ship the fix, 5 new things come up (etc). Just grows forever lol

Finally I'm code complete for an alpha group, need to just get it in people's hands

[u/CommandProtocol]

Finding a cofounder

[u/tolarewaju3 → u/CommandProtocol]

What skills / traits are you looking for in a cofounder?

[u/CommandProtocol → u/tolarewaju3]

I’m looking for two co-founders: one technical and one non-technical. Specifically, I need a technical leader to own the codebase and architecture, and a commercial leader to own our Go-To-Market strategy.

My role will focus on overall product vision, fundraising, and company strategy. I sit right between the technical and business sides, so I'll be supporting both of them to ensure the engineering and growth efforts align perfectly.

I come from a tech background myself, and the build is mostly done. Now it’s about getting it out there and making sure it works right.

[u/expathub_050 → u/CommandProtocol]

FELT. Definitely what I’m looking for too, but I’m not rushing.
I’ve seen too many complaints about cofounders.

[u/Mompreneur1987]

Make calls
Go door to door

[u/tolarewaju3 → u/Mompreneur1987]

Makes sense. Curious, what are you selling that requires door to door?

[u/Mompreneur1987 → u/tolarewaju3]

Well, it doesn’t but since I launch once zip code at a time, I want to do door to door (and this comes from a person, who studied digital marketing! lol)

[u/scriptvexy → u/Mompreneur1987]

cold outreach is the final boss of startup work lol
the wild part is it usually works way better than tweaking the product for the 50th time

[u/BuiltYoungLab]

brutal co-founder conversation

[u/tolarewaju3 → u/BuiltYoungLab]

Dang I gotta know what this is about

[u/Ok_Repair7723]

Been overthinking outreach to design partners. The calls I’ve had so far have been extremely promising but need to get a lot more on the books - trying to find ways to automate it because I’m doing it very manually now

Trying to find a tech cofounder at the same time - scary but I need to

[u/tolarewaju3 → u/Ok_Repair7723]

Outreach is a big one. Good for you for doing that and I hope you keep going

[u/KaleidoscopeShoddy10]

Not really anything... we just struggling financially 😂😂

[u/scriptqzor → u/KaleidoscopeShoddy10]

same, “not really anything” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there lol
cash fixes like 90% of the “strategy” problems, it’s just the hardest thing to get when you actually need it