Startup Advice for Getting Leads: Hustle doing things that won't work and established networks are useless
One of my business obsessions is startups bringing in revenue. This is related to another obsession: cash flow.
My revenue obsession comes from long years of bootstrapped startups (first LogicTools, then Opex Analytics). Without revenue, we would have problems like not meeting payroll. Or, at Opex Analytics, having the bank take possession of my house.
My obsession hasn’t left me. After my Opex Analytics days, I talked to many founders of young bootstrapped companies. The founders wanted advice on their technology. I had plenty of time to talk about technology. But I quickly wanted to move away from technology and talk about sales: Who are your customers? What are they paying you? Why are you coding and not out selling? And so on like this.
This leads to two questions. The most common was: How did you generate leads at Opex Analytics?
My answer always disappoints: You have to do a lot of stuff that doesn’t work. And keep at it. In other words, hustle.
Looking back, and even at that time, we knew that almost everything we were doing wouldn’t generate enough leads. We had booths at conferences, blogged, emailed, hired people to email and cold call, talked to whoever would talk to us, played with the website, made sure we returned any inbound inquiry within a few minutes, responded to RFPs (even ones written by our competitors), met with potential partners, talked to former employers, wrote a book, and so on.
Most things on the list led to nothing. Some gave us a few leads over multiple years. The return on any one of those activities was terrible. However, in total, it worked.
A recent entrepreneurship podcast explained this better. The podcast was an interview with Sarah Moore and her quest to buy a multi-million dollar business with $0 down. The episode is a good story on its own and a good story about hustling in a startup.
Toward the end, the interviewer struck a chord with me. He said that it doesn’t matter if this stuff works. However, this sends a signal to yourself that you are all in. This is true. I knew most RFPs I filled out were useless, but I gave it a go. So when the useful one came, we would be ready.
The second most common question is: “How do I find a salesperson with a great network.”
I think the founder’s hidden meaning is, “I don’t have a great network; it would be great if I could find someone with a great network that will generate a ton of easy leads.”
My answer to this also disappoints: even if you find this person, their network will be mostly useless to you.
The people in that network are not likely to want to buy your product. But a good network shows that the person can build a new one. It also gives you people to talk to (which is a long way from an easy lead but part of the hustle).
In my experience with early startups, you need to have at least a small network in place before experienced salespeople will join you. So, this takes you back to the first point— you need to hustle to build that.
Keep in mind that as your company grows, you can get more systematic about generating leads. In the meantime, good luck hustling!