The Mint Recap: Early-Stage Growth with Gokul Rajaram
It was awesome to have Gokul Rajaram as our special guest at The Mint a few weeks ago! He shared great insights on how to set a solid foundation of growth thinking at the earliest stage. Here are our favorite snippets.
1. Every great company starts with founder-led sales.
Founders should acquire the first 5-50 customers on their own, in “hand-to-hand combat.” Founders need these interactions to learn more about what the problem is & what the ICP is. Nobody can articulate a product like the founder.
2. Get customer insight + understand user behavior.
In the early days, it’s crucial to talk to your customers to gain their insights AND how they use your product. Features are useless unless they change user behavior in some way. Tip: the best products have the fewest features.
3. Test all of the early distribution channels available to you.
Gokul discussed 4 early distribution channels that founders can and should leverage in the early days: targeted cold outbound, referrals via network, content, and community.
4. Take big swings.
Early-stage tech companies shouldn’t use big-tech tactics; don’t make optimizations that change things by 0.2%. Take big swings, such as changing your pricing or how you communicate your value proposition.
5. Constantly perform hypothesis-driven experimentation.
Everything you do in the earliest stages is a hypothesis. Constantly ask the question, “Why? Why are we launching this?” You should have a good answer :) Don’t go fully into anything until you’ve tested it out!
6. SDRs should capture demand, not generate it.
If prospects are unfamiliar with your biz, SDR will likely fail. Prioritize marketing for awareness. Begin with founder-led sales, then hire marketers to generate demand, THEN employ SDRs or biz hires to seize existing demand.
