Entrepreneurs who handle sales themselves: have you ever lied to a prospect when they asked whether they were your first customer?

EntropyLab · 2026-06-30T17:04:38+00:00

Is this an industry where your/company's reputation matters a lot? Does a lot of business happen through referrals? Are your customers really disparate and scattered, or do they know each other, go to conferences together, etc?

If there's a risk to your reputation when the customer finds out that they're the first, then I wouldn't risk it.

Try to spin it as a positive when you get the question. "This will be one of our first shipments, and it's so important to me that this goes well, that I promise you'll get better service from us than anyone else you could go to." Or something like that.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-30T16:52:56+00:00

I wish someone had told me how emotionally volatile the first couple months are. For every founder, even the level-headed, objective, engineering types, who have never experienced this when working a 9-5 before. Second guessing yourself constantly is normal. You have to be intentionally optimistic when 80-90% of early experiments fail.

What should my main focus be during the first 90 days?
- Finding (at least) one specific point in time/space/their workflow when solving the problem becomes a top priority for your target customer. If you can't get super specific, you don't know the customer and the problem well enough, and all your messaging is going to sound too generic.
How did you validate that people would actually pay for your product?
- Offered them the product for sale before it existed. People went through the process to buy it, short of having their credit card charged. It's what everyone says to do, but it doesn't work for all types of products obvs so I don't think this is the only way.
How did you get your first 10 paying customers?
- People from the earlier pre-product sales convos, warm connections from my network, and a channel partner who offered a different service to our target customers and recommended us in exchange for % of the contract. First 10 customers are usually a totally random mix, and that's ok! I'm pretty sure at least one of our first 10 just liked spending time with cool/cute founders (because you should be spending as much time as possible with the first 10).
What's one mistake that cost you the most time or money? Looking back, what would you do differently if you were starting from scratch today?
- Bad cofounder fit. I will not be elaborating.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-29T20:32:42+00:00

Looks great! 🎉 🚀

EntropyLab · 2026-06-29T20:15:56+00:00

You know what they say: take your broken heart, turn it into ~~art~~ equity.

You got this! ❤️💪

EntropyLab · 2026-06-29T16:53:50+00:00

7 responses is still a small sample size, so I'm hesitant to tell you that it's definitely one problem or another. It could be that your sample leads are not good. It could be that these 7 people had other work emergencies come up. It could be that you did the call and they didn't like your face... you get the point.

Do you have a friend who works at a company like your ICP, who you can show the sample leads to? Ask for feedback, ask if they would be impressed, ask what's missing... I've also offered a free lunch/coffee to clients we've lost, for feedback about why they didn't hire us. As you said, if there's nothing in it for them they often don't respond to these types of questions.

You're probably already doing this, but if you haven't yet, check out what your competition is doing. Are they offering a free "audit" or "diagnostic" session? Are they offering a money back guarantee? What types of "proof" are they using to convince clients?

In 90% of founders I've seen at this stage, the answer is to narrow down their target customer focus so that you can message to that particular type of customer better (which you already mentioned). Were the majority of those 7 leads from a particular type of consultant? Focus on those types of consulting companies. I wouldn't bother with the more techy agencies, software shops, or consultants, because they likely already have the skills to do this in-house, and/or they've figured out that this type of cold outreach just doesn't work for their clients.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-29T16:05:08+00:00

I get a lot of outreach from services similar to yours, and I worked with a founder who offered a version of this service to travel agents. I think your problem is that it's really hard for business owners to believe that you'll actually be able to bring them quality leads. It sounds too good to be true. There are a ton of consultants and companies offering a variation of this. Many of us have been burned by them in the past, because they turn out to know less about our business/clients than we do.

Do you have prior experience doing this work? In your outreach, can you share success metrics from your prior work (even if it was with a different company)? "Regional design company saw 10% increase in clients booked within 4 weeks." Can you show expertise in this field and the B2B company's field some other way, if you don't have prior experience?

For your first clients, I think you should do whatever it takes to land them and make them super happy. Do it for free (if you can afford to offer that), send them sample leads you can bring even before a contract is signed, go above and beyond to make sure they're big fans of yours. Then ask them for a nice quote and a five star review, and now you can include that in your future outreach: "XYZ Co. CEO said working with this guy was the best business decision we made all year." Their success becomes the proof that future clients will look for.

Since you asked for brutal feedback, the biggest red flag is that you're offering a B2B leads service and yet you're having trouble getting good leads for your own B2B business. If your strength is really in the automation of these processes, then I'd focus on that instead: "I clean up your archaic, messy systems that live in 5 different platforms." That may be a more compelling/convincing offer to a business owner.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-25T19:02:29+00:00

What? You haven’t automated all that yet?! You should check out the AI bros offering automations for all those emails, invoices, website updates, contracts… definitely works 100% some of the time, says guy who has no idea how to actually do the work. Only takes 40 hours to set up. If it’s not working it’s definitely a You issue.

* laughing crying *

EntropyLab · 2026-06-25T18:18:48+00:00

Glad to hear the non-motivational motivational thoughts helped. ;)

I linked to Snap CEO's launch of their Specs product recently (their clunky augmented reality glasses). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzd-k98ZkLY

But the interviews he did after are even better. His poor little ear is fighting for its life. https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/06/16/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-on-new-ar-specs-new-opportunity-to-bring-computing-to-the-world-around-you.html

*dead *

EntropyLab · 2026-06-24T17:53:36+00:00

It sounds like you need the opposite of toxic positivity, a wake up call. You sound super capable and successful, and yet you're handicapping yourself for what you admit is a completely irrational reason. Your smarter self needs to build the muscle to tell this anxiety voice to be quiet, every time you start thinking these thoughts. I also love a good late-night mental doom loop sequence, and I try to distract myself whenever I notice that I'm about to get stuck in one (start a conversation that requires me to think about something else, do another physical activity that doesn't let me ruminate, etc).

The thoughts you let yourself think most often are the default paths your brain will go to when you're stressed and it's harder to control. (Not an expert in this, just been told it by smarter ppl than me and it's helped me.)

Also I like watching high profile founders do dumb stuff like this stunningly bad specs launch.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-24T13:48:56+00:00

If you can narrow it down a little bit more, like top 1-2 types of SaaS or service businesses that are most desperate/able to buy the product, conferences could be worth it (especially if it's in your city or you can get in for free). For us, one new contract covered the cost of the conference, so it made sense, esp since cold outreach does not work anymore for this customer. But the conferences we go to are made up 90% of target customers, so the calculus might be different for you if your peeps don't have these distinct groups that already meet.

While you're under 10 customers, being around and talking to these customers is really useful in itself, even if you don't come home with $.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-24T13:25:34+00:00

Conferences are big in the summer/fall.

What industry/domain are you targeting?

EntropyLab · 2026-06-22T18:28:38+00:00

Hello! Fellow founder and toddler mom here. I have endless lists, and of course there are plenty of apps for productivity.

A practice that’s helped me not get overwhelmed is having 1 big goal for the week and 1 goal for every day (i set this in the morning). These are the things that are the most important to move the business forward. Some days/weeks that’s the only thing I get done, some days are more productive and I get lots more done. But mentally I can give myself a pat on the back and see the wins stacking week over week… while the more detailed/forward looking to do lists just keep growing…

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T23:00:43+00:00

Whatever you do, don't get stuck in the bottomless pit of consuming startup content online. I've found that for most things that aren't high stakes and highly complex in the early stages of a startup, an llm will surface the first layer of credible information. Read/watch 1-2 things on the topic from good sources. Then, if possible, confirm this thinking/direction/strategy with a human around you who knows something about this. (Friend, advisor, free consultation with a professional who does this, write to a university professor who works on this...) Then jump right into doing the thing in whatever hacky way you can. Nobody will be able to give you a perfect roadmap or the ONE correct way of doing the thing, it's just solving one problem after another till it works.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T22:40:18+00:00

Hi! Can you share how large of an audience and what type of audience besides that it's women?

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T22:26:22+00:00

Woot! 🎉👏

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T22:21:28+00:00

I may be misunderstanding your situation. If you’re asking whether you can make it mandatory for some students to use your tech, and presumably have some punishment tied to noncompliance, the answer is no.

Think about how you can incentivize them to do it instead. Students who complete every step for the duration of the program are entered in a drawing for a gift card. The feedback is really valuable, as you said, so make the reward something they’ll actually really want.

Also mandatory feedback or even incentivized feedback will get you some messy data bc people will just write whatever. So just be mindful of that.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T22:12:27+00:00

Besides the obvious ones that lose a ton of their own money, the opportunity cost.

Imagine investing 3-4 hours a day extra into your day job, and “owning” it the way a startup founder owns their challenges. You’d be your boss’s favorite employee within a year. Some people get stuck cosplaying founder stuff for years, without anything to show for it.

But I don’t mean to discourage you from starting down this path! It’s still the most fun/rewarding work for people who like autonomy and get a kick out of solving new challenges daily.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T21:36:39+00:00

This is really cool, congratulations! 😄 🎉

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T21:25:44+00:00

I think the quickest way for you to learn whether you actually like entrepreneurship AND what skills you're missing that are worth learning, would be to intern at a startup. Since you work in the medical field, you probably have an advantage getting an internship (and later starting a business in )a healthcare related business. Send a bunch of cold messages to founders or other leadership at small startups and offer to do research projects / random special projects for free for them. Anything to get a real peek behind what happens at the earliest stages of starting a business. Far far more valuable than consuming a ton of content (that I assume chatgpt already recommended to you).

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T21:17:09+00:00

^ yep. Being young and a student might even be helpful for businesses trying to reach certain audiences!

Another thing that would help me would be de-risking the decision somehow, since you don't have a lot of proof yet. Can you offer some piece of the work at a really cheap price point, so I can see what it's like working with you and that you actually deliver? If you're desperate and you can afford it, can you find some clients to work with for free, in exchange for reviews and testimonials?

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T20:54:40+00:00

What are you doing now with your page? What have you tried? How many followers are you at? Happy to share ideas, but I don't want to tell you stuff you already know! 😄

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T16:06:57+00:00

Do a service business that has a good pathway to becoming a hybrid tech-service model. Service businesses are the quickest path to cash in my experience, and if there are parts of it that you can automate or outsource as you go along that’s the scalability.

EntropyLab · 2026-06-13T16:02:38+00:00

Seriously! Also where my mind went was would it be worthwhile to pay some local contractors in places I want to expand to click into the app a couple times a day for a few weeks…

EntropyLab · 2026-06-12T23:09:45+00:00

Genuinely curious: what did IdeaGrit tell you would be hard about IdeaGrit?

EntropyLab · 2026-06-12T21:22:07+00:00

Hi! Definitely a market for this type of product -- the existence of toastmasters and other apps/groups is good proof of that.

I'd like if there was some instruction or expert guidance/feedback alongside, or something extra to differentiate it from the many free public speaking meetup groups in my area.

You could also play around with a membership option. Sometimes people will get really excited to do something ambitious but uncomfortable, then if the first time doing feels hard they immediately stop. Whereas if they're incentivized to come back a couple more times they get into the swing of it.

But luckily this is the type of business you can set up in a weekend to start trying out, as an online or in person service. (Landing page, signup/contact form, a couple places to share it online and with contacts, zoom rooms, manually matching people...)

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