First paying customer: Building weeks #21&22 🏗️
Other two weeks in my journey to build an AI sales trainer, that democratises high quality role-plays.
TL,DR
First $3.6K of ARR
Officialised the founding team with one to many beers in Berlin 😊
Organised a sales competition and generated more than 60 high quality leads
Nelson Mandela did something harder that building a startup but his quote still applies: “After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”
Overall good execution
After a break we start pushing again!
Last weeks were crazy, we got our first paying customer ($3.6K ARR), then officialised our founding team (More in the following edition) and organised a sales competition with more than 60 participants. Each of this achievement is great, but the first revenue is a huge step! In my life I built many startups, 5 to be precise.
A quick recap:
A social network to organise football matches: created a deck and applied for an incubation program, didn’t get in and gave up.
A peer to peer language learning (AKO): got incubated (The one I hadn’t got in before) we had a couple of test classes after 3 months, our CTO got another job and we gave up.
An AI running coach: had two beta users, didn’t get an MVP fast enough and didn’t find a niche that needed it.
An AI notetaker for nutritionists: I spoke with more than 30 ICP before killing it.
E-learning platform to train SMEs on sustainability topics: got 5 interested companies, built our MVP, spoke to investors and died.
All this to say, this is the first time I make money selling a software I built (Not alone 😃), it feels good but I am already stressed on how to add a zero to that ARR asap! So let’s get to it!
Status
Building a startup is nuts, but maybe a business in general. Every time you think the current step is the hardest and once you get over it it will be easy. I thought finding ideas is impossible, than finding good tech co-founders, than building an MVPP (Minimum viable paid product) and last getting the first paying customer. Now I need to balance offering an excellent service, growing the number of clients (Show traction) and start talking to investors. Any tips on this I am all ears!
Execution
🟢 Get first revenue: last week we got our first $3.6K ARR.
🟡 Get 5 more LoIs from target companies: got 4 and counting, so not there yet but confident we will do it this week, especially with all the leads from the sales contest.
🟢 Write new deck: the first version was good, but got to make much clearer the impact of the problem and how massive is market.
🔴 Formulate the problem and test hooks: I have started working with a sales coach and over the next two weeks, starting from our value prop we will test several hooks to see which part of the problems our ICP care about (Saving money, increase revenue, increasing retention)
What keeps me up at night
What if zoomed in too much on single customer and lost the big picture: do things than don’t scale should be everyones motto, but what if that client is the only one on earth? Unlikely, but to avoid this issue I will keep talking to as many clients as possible but limiting the number of clients we onboard.
How can I choose the right niche to focus on: sales training is a massive space, from tech sales to outsourcing agencies, there are an endless list of sectors you could pick. Picking one early is ideal both for investors and for your product roadmap, but it to preclude you interesting opportunities.
What about the competition: last two weeks were refreshing, talking to many sales leaders most said they never saw something like that and they compared my solution to Gong. On the other side talking to others they have an endless list of “competitors”, some are really active on socials and creating a buzz. I don’t have a conclusion here, but I will focus on my turf for now!
Next 2 weeks (After a break)
Talk to 10 angels: current goal is to close the round in September but I want to start building relationships now.
Send deck to 3 selected VCs: won’t loose too much time with VCs I want to talk to ones with quick processes and that invest at our stage.
Get 10 LoIs: keep the momentum and show the first customer was not luck.
1 extra paying customers: Stripe notifications are addictive we want to find our next paying customer asap!
Platform migration: we are moving away from our MVP so we can onboard customers faster, the value of our solution can’t be told with a Figma you need to try it to see how powerful it is.
Book 10 meetings from the competition leads: Let’s cash in on the competition converting those leads in discovery calls.
Next week I will disconnect so you will hear back from me at the end of July, but the deadline I gave myself (End of August) is approaching it looks like I will have a business before then!