Week 10: I'm at the edge of my ability
In a lot of ways, the last 10 weeks have gone by in a flash. Even I'm a little surprised that I'm going to make my goal of shipping a product in 90 days.
On November 14th at 10:00 AM PST, I'll make ShadowTraffic generally available for use and purchase. When the time comes, help me get the word out!
Until then, I'm focused on two final pre-launch activites: marketing and figuring out my business model. And I've got news: I'm not good at either of these. It's been a hard week, so for today's newsletter I want to talk about the major technical and mental mistakes I've made.
Chasing customers
When you’re starting a new business, there’s an overwhelming drive to close your first customer. Sure, the money is important. Plus, closing your first customer is a proof point that it’s possible for your business to exist.
But if you’re not careful, you’ll try to close your first customer based on a hidden goal: looking good. What do I mean by that?
I know many venture funded start-ups that are struggling to close customers after more than a year of operating. By comparison, I’d be over the moon if I could close my first customer in sub-90 days. It would enforce my ego that I’m really good at this.
The problem is that when you chase a customer without good terms, or without a good use case, you get distracted. You start focusing on the wrong things.
It’s been incredibly hard to stop myself from chasing. The trap is that I think if I just close one customer, others will come running. It helps to some degree, but not nearly as much as it seems.
Here’s the correction to that logic: it doesn’t make sense to obsess about closing any single account. If you think an account is make or break, the market isn’t big enough for your business. You need many accounts, not just this one.
Negotiating on the fly
For the most part, being completely transparent about the state of my business has been positive. It’s helped me build trust with accounts faster, think through problems from the customers perspective, and rally support around me.
But there’s one area where this has gotten painful: pricing.
Until now, my pricing model has been, “We’ll figure it out.” That’s been good for the early stages. It’s much better to first answer the question, “Does this product have any value to you?” before asking “How much will you pay for this?”
However, leaving things up in the air too long only causes confusion. It opens debate when it comes time to ink the deal.
What’s the correction to this problem? When I was at Confluent, I once heard that the best salespeople have a special skill: they can express the value of a product in concrete business terms. I didn’t really understand that a practical level—until this week.
For example, the value of ShadowTraffic for sales engineers is shortening POC times. That’s something that can be quantified.
Forgetting that I’m a beginner
When something doesn’t go right, it’s hard not to get emotional and take it personally. Part of growing in any discipline is understanding why mistakes happen at a technical level. Having a clinical view gives you distance between your work and you as a person.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to remember that mindset.
There’s a famous survey that more than 80% of respondants think they’re above average drivers. If that’s true, you have to wonder where all the bad drivers are.
I think this week, I’m the bad driver. And that’s alright. Why?
The correction: I can't expect to perform well at things I've hardly ever done. I can only learn by getting more reps.
Besides, it works that way for everyone.