What traction can a startup achieve in a week?

Hearing @liubinskas speak earlier this week about his record time for going from startup idea to first customer (12 minutes) got me thinking about startup productivity and what’s important in that first critical week of your startup.

Acquiring & talking to first customers is #1

Acquiring your first few customers is number #1. It can’t be overstated that your business is no more than a theoretical exercise until you have customers.

Common complaints in this area are:

• “But I need a system to automate on boarding users fast!”
• “But I need to write a cold-calling script/list of prospects!”
• “But I need a name/brand/t-shirt/business card/flyer”

None of these things actually matter for your first 100 customers and what is really happening to you is something called “playing house” meaning you’re doing stuff that you think a founder should do but is actually not important at all. Whole hoards of startups spend their days in strategy meetings, drafting documents and designing products that no one will use.

In terms of what to pitch — pick something with a simple and clear value proposition. If you can’t explain it as X for $Y then it might be too complicated. Ideally your initial product is a subset of your overarching grand idea. For example if you plan on building an enterprise marketing app that costs $50,000 per month then start with something smaller, one core feature that you can charge an introductory price of $50 per month for. Note the term introductory, this is important because you can give your initial customers a massive up front discount for taking the chance on you and your business (never give things away for free).

The challenge I would give all new founders is to land their first customer with ZERO work done on building the product/brand and smash Mick’s 12 minute record.

Strategies for acquiring your first 50-100 customers

The scariest part about acquiring customers is knowing where to start. Years of founding business, speaking with and helping entrepreneurs has given us a chance to compile a rough playbook. The trick is to keep it simple and spend quality time on a few things.

1. Talk to everyone in your network no matter how significant/insignificant busy/annoying they are, ask for introductions and connections - even your old school teacher from grade 3 might know someone who can help!
2. Hit the street/phone - no need for a call script or questionnaire, just get out there and figure it out as you go. Speak authentically rather than from a script. A quick Google search will net you a number of people to call for any given market. Keep track in a spreadsheet. No CRM necessary.
3. Reach out via LinkedIn (enterprise/SME) or Twitter/Facebook (consumer businesses). You’d be surprised how many CEOs have accepted my LinkedIn request or message, Twitter is also great to discover consumer pains in real-time.

Are you busy this weekend? We’re looking for early stage startups to join our accelerator, applications close this week. Apply here.

Josh Anthony - Community Manager @RiverCityLabs