Founder-led Sales w/ Jen Abel
One of the defining features of an indie approach to company building is short “time to revenue”. What this means in practice is that indie founders are inclined to be selling early and often.
Sometimes that sale is a complete product. But, more often than not, that sale is the promise of a product in development or a service that helps underwrite and inform the roadmap of a product in development.
This is a pattern executed again and again by the most ambitious founders. From Elon Musk with SpaceX, to Bill Gates with Microsoft, to Christina Cacioppo with Vanta, all began building their empires by selling ahead of the product.
The learnings from these interactions with customers are invaluable for validating/invalidating assumptions and often put companies on an early path to independence.
Not many people are better at sharing learnings from this focus on founder-led sales than Jen Abel from Jjellyfish. I’ve know Jen for years and have watched her work with companies who consistently find their way to product market fit through her coaching and guidance
She recently shared a tweet breaking down 25 of her most critical learnings for those embarking on their founder-led sales journeys. Despite our best attempt, we didn’t make it through all 25, but the ones we did hit were phenomenal.
A few takeaways:
— Product-market fit requires customers willing to pay and stay. It’s not just about initial sales, it’s also about retention. Early-stage sales should focus on research and understanding customer problems rather than immediate revenue generation. Founders often skip this crucial research phase.
— Abstract solutions require focusing on specific problems rather than leading with the technology itself. To create urgency, you need to demonstrate how a problem is growing or intensifying for the customer. If a problem isn’t being measured or managed, it’s likely not a priority.
— Early adopters are often those early in their buying journey who are willing to experiment. They buy into the founder as a subject matter expert rather than expecting a fully-built product. Successful startups often start by focusing on a specific niche before expanding horizontally. Being highly specialized allows you to understand customer problems better than they do.
— Invalidation is a healthy part of the startup process. If you’re not invalidating assumptions, you’re likely not learning or going deep enough. Sales feedback is valuable for positioning and refinement, but product vision should come from founders or product leads. Salespeople should not drive product vision. Demonstrating expertise by setting boundaries on what your product does (and doesn’t do) can actually increase customer confidence.
Indie often gets framed as an approach that’s less than — less ambitious, less impactful, less upside. That’s obviously very frustrating to me.
The reality is, we want more founders following in the footsteps of the legends we valorize. The road to independence starts with sales and the learnings that flow from them. We want to work with the founders who don’t run from this or bury themselves in their own fetishized product fever dreams.
The shorter your time to revenue, the shorter your path to independence, and the closer you are to category leadership. Thats what indie is about.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jen as much as we enjoyed having it.
— Bryce
