Most startup founders should sell to customers before raising money. Founders often pitch investors and customers the same way, but customers care about solving their specific problems, not market size or innovation narratives. Start with smaller deals and listen to what customers actually need.
I think most founders should sell more and they should raise less. There are a small number of companies that need to raise before they are selling things to customers, but the vast majority, and that means almost certainly yours, should be getting money from customers and a lot more money from customers before you're getting money from, say, equity investors or money from debt. What I have found is that a lot of founders get confused and start telling stories to customers thinking this will be good for sales. Because they managed to raise, say, $1 million that way. They've never sold $1 million of anything before. And now they made their first million-dollar sale. They're using that same pitch to go talk to the customer. But in fact, you need to find out what the customer really wants. What's the pitch that's going to go for them? That's going to be a pitch for thousands as opposed to millions. But it's just fundamentally different. I find people going in, they're talking about innovation, they're talking about the big size of the market, what have you. Don't. Talk about their problem. Talk about where they are. Focus on selling to the customers, not to funders.
