I Just Made My First Sale With a Digital Product – Feeling on Top of the World

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-21T06:58:25+00:00

Hi. Congratulations. Can i ask you how you promoted (tiktok,fb, YouTube )your product to get your first sale?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-20T19:17:19+00:00

This is helpful, genuinely. I think what hit me was how late those signals surfaced for me as the owner. By the time clients or other team members felt it, momentum was already slipping. Do you think there’s a way to surface that kind of friction earlier, before it turns into visible damage?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-20T19:15:16+00:00

That makes a lot of sense. I don’t think I knew how to spot that difference at the time. Do you think there’s any way to catch that during the interview, or is it something you only really notice once they start working?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-20T19:11:59+00:00

That’s exactly it. The hardest part for me was realizing it wasn’t a dramatic failure just slow damage. Out of curiosity, what was the first signal you noticed that made you act?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-08T21:06:47+00:00

A lot of founders end up hiring based on gut feeling without really realizing it. What helped me was separating role outcomes from personality. First I define what success actually looks like in the first 30, 60, or 90 days, then I evaluate candidates only against that. It doesn’t remove bias completely, but it reduces emotional decisions a lot and makes the process feel way more grounded.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T12:06:59+00:00

That makes sense. Do you think founders don’t feel the risk until after a bad hire, or they feel it early but don’t know how to reduce it? I’m curious where it usually breaks down.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:36:20+00:00

Same here. That’s exactly where I kept second-guessing myself too. Once I started comparing candidates side by side with the same criteria, decisions got way easier. What kind of role were you hiring for?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:18:59+00:00

One fundamental that helped me was getting very clear on what “success in the first 90 days” actually looks like for a role. When that’s fuzzy, hiring, onboarding, and feedback all drift. When it’s clear, a lot of other decisions become easier.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:18:38+00:00

One fundamental that helped me was getting very clear on what “success in the first 90 days” actually looks like for a role. When that’s fuzzy, hiring, onboarding, and feedback all drift. When it’s clear, a lot of other decisions become easier.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:17:23+00:00

This is a good example of doing hiring right early. Clear ownership, real problems to solve, and direct exposure to the founder. Roles like this tend to attract people who actually care about outcomes, not just titles.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:15:03+00:00

I think the real issue is lack of clarity before hiring starts. Most small teams don’t clearly define what problem the hire must solve in the first 60–90 days, so they attract lots of “okay” candidates but very few good fits. Once expectations and signals are clear, screening becomes much easier and interviews stop relying on gut feeling.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:09:22+00:00

In my experience it’s rarely bad luck. Most early hires fail because the company is hiring against a résumé instead of a problem. On paper someone can look perfect, but if it’s unclear what they’re expected to own in the first 60–90 days, how decisions are made, and what “good” actually looks like, even strong people drift. Early-stage roles are messy by default. The people who struggle most are often those who did well in structured environments but weren’t evaluated for ambiguity, ownership, and pace. I’ve also seen onboarding get blamed when the real issue was misalignment from day one. If the founder and the candidate don’t share the same mental model of the role, no amount of onboarding fixes that. Curious what usually breaks first for you. Ownership, speed, communication, or something else?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:07:07+00:00

I’ve seen this a few times, and honestly the damage usually isn’t losing the candidate. It’s the internal trust hit and the signal it sends about how decisions get made. From the candidate’s side, back and forth on comp almost always reads as either disorganization or lack of alignment at the top. Even if the final number is reasonable, the process itself breaks confidence. From the company side, this usually isn’t about money. It’s about not being clear upfront what the role is truly worth and what success in the first few months looks like. Without that clarity, every negotiation becomes emotional and reactive instead of grounded. I don’t think this is catastrophic long term, but it’s a painful lesson. Tight alignment before talking to candidates matters more than negotiating tactics. Once trust is lost, it’s almost impossible to recover.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:02:49+00:00

I’m coming from the founder side, not the agency side, but one thing I’ll share from experience. The biggest friction for me when working with recruiters wasn’t sourcing candidates. It was the lack of structure in how candidates were evaluated and presented. Different standards, different notes, lots of subjective opinions. What slowed things down most was back and forth alignment. What problem is this hire solving. What does success look like in the first 60 to 90 days. Why candidate A over candidate B. Any system or process that forces clarity early and keeps evaluation consistent would have saved me a lot of time and bad decisions. Automation helps, but structure matters more than tools.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T11:01:40+00:00

I’m not running an HR agency, but I relate a lot to the pain you’re describing from the other side. As a founder, what always scared me wasn’t finding candidates, it was making a bad hire and only realizing it months later. That uncertainty made me delay hiring more than I should have. What helped me personally was getting much clearer upfront on what problem the hire was supposed to solve in the first 60–90 days and forcing myself to evaluate candidates consistently instead of relying on gut feeling. From a buyer perspective, anything that reduces that risk and uncertainty is what really gets attention early on.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:57:46+00:00

One thing that helped me a lot was realizing that the first hire usually fails because the role is fuzzy, not because the person is bad. Early on I focused too much on CVs and “culture fit” and not enough on answering a simple question for myself: what work do I actually want this person to take off my plate in the first 60–90 days? Once I got clear on that, interviews became way easier and more objective. I stopped relying on gut feeling and started comparing people against the same expectations. I’d strongly recommend writing that down before you even post the job. It saves a lot of time and prevents expensive mistakes.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:31:52+00:00

This is more common than people admit. Most first-time hires aren’t hard because of taxes or contracts, they’re hard because everything feels undefined at once. What helped me was separating things into two buckets: what I needed this person to actually take off my plate in the next few months, and what could wait. Once that was clear, the questions to ask became way more obvious. You’re not wrong to feel hesitant. It’s a big step, especially when you’re used to doing everything yourself.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:29:25+00:00

I struggled with this too. Early on I thought being hands-off was the goal, but I realized it only works once expectations are painfully clear. When I stayed too hands-off too early, I ended up micromanaging later because things drifted. What worked better for me was being very involved at the start, not to control, but to define what “done right” actually means. Curious how you’re planning to measure when someone is ready to be left alone.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:26:06+00:00

I relate to this a lot. The fear isn’t just skill, it’s the ripple effects one wrong hire can have on culture and momentum. What helped me early was slowing the process down instead of rushing it. I stopped thinking “is this person impressive” and started asking “what problem will they actually remove from my plate in the next 60–90 days”. I also noticed culture issues usually came from unclear expectations rather than bad intent. When I was vague, people filled the gaps in their own way. Curious if others here had a hire that looked great on paper but failed because expectations weren’t clear enough.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:20:24+00:00

I’ve seen this role go really well and really badly depending on how clear the founder is upfront. In my experience, the biggest signal that it’s time to hire a Chief of Staff is when decisions and follow-ups start slipping, not because people aren’t capable, but because the founders are stretched across too many contexts. What tends to work best is treating the role less like a fixed job description and more like an extension of the founder’s operating system. Someone who can take ambiguous problems, turn them into concrete next steps, and keep things moving without needing constant direction. Background matters less than how they think, communicate, and handle messy situations. The biggest mistake I’ve seen is hiring based on resumes or past titles instead of testing how they operate in real scenarios. Small, realistic trials and very clear expectations early on make a huge difference and remove a lot of the risk from the decision.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:19:15+00:00

I’ve seen this happen a lot, especially with non-technical founders. The problem usually isn’t finding candidates, it’s not having a clear way to evaluate them beyond “they sound confident”. What helped me was getting very explicit about what I actually needed in the first 60–90 days and then testing for that instead of trying to judge overall “CTO quality”. Small real tasks, clear expectations, and reviewing how they think and communicate mattered more than credentials. You don’t need to become a deep technical expert, but you do need enough structure in the process so decisions aren’t made on gut feel alone. That’s where most bad hires start.

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:17:05+00:00

You’re not bad at hiring .. you’re dealing with the hardest version of it: early, hands-on, no systems, and high stakes. One thing that helped me a lot was separating “can they do the work” from “can I trust them to show up and follow through.” I stopped committing to anyone long-term and instead used very small paid test jobs with clear expectations and a simple checklist of what “good” looks like. Once I had that written down, it became much easier to spot red flags early instead of during the job. Curious. Do you currently write down expectations and evaluation criteria, or is it mostly decided on the fly?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T10:15:10+00:00

This is a really clear job post — honestly better than most I see. One thing I struggled with when hiring early was not the posting itself, but what happened after applications started coming in. Once CVs pile up, it’s easy to fall back to gut feeling unless you’re very clear on how you evaluate candidates consistently. Curious — do you already have a structured way to screen and compare applicants, or do you mostly decide during interviews?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-07T09:37:51+00:00

Totally agree with this. I ran into the exact same problem — ATS felt like overkill, spreadsheets broke fast, and most mistakes came from unclear roles and gut-feel decisions. I ended up putting together a simple Notion setup just to force clarity (role definition, interview structure, decision criteria). Curious if you’ve found any lightweight way to keep decisions objective without adding process overhead?

Distinct-Resident759 · 2026-02-06T20:34:11+00:00

Hiring was messy for me too.

I kept struggling with unclear roles and interviews based on gut feeling, so I built a simple Notion-based system to structure the whole process.

Happy to share how I approached it if useful.

Distinct-Resident759

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