How to Simplify Seed-Stage Repeatability
How to Simplify Seed-Stage Repeatability
A strategy to focus your ICP and build toward product-market fit
When you’ve raised a Seed round, you probably have a variety of customers. Some are decently happy, others are grumbling. A few are your “Hell Yes” customers, who bought quickly, are extremely happy, and have even referred others.
My recommendation: Lean into your Hell Yes customers. Figure out why they say “Hell Yes,” and do everything in your power to find others who are just like them.
I call this, “Leaning into who works.”
When you know who works, you then want to lean into what works.
Your product probably does a variety of awesome things. And your Hell Yes customer picked out a subset of those things and loves them.
Ask yourself, “What did this Hell Yes customer actually buy?” It’s rarely what you thought you were selling.
It helps to review recorded sales and customer success calls to figure out what your Hell Yes customer was really trying to accomplish. It’s worth talking to them as well. I try to create a mental documentary film of what was going on in their world up until the moment they chose to work with me.
When you understand who loves you, and what they actually bought, you can design your sales outreach and process to find nearly identical customers and sell what they want to buy.
This makes selling repeatable and less magical. You deal with fewer variables and can make high-conviction bets. Plus, when you lean into who and what work, your product roadmap gets straightforward. You field fewer feature requests and support tickets out of left field. And your path to Series A and beyond gets much, much clearer.
Worksheet: Simplifying Repeatability
This worksheet helps founders design around who and what work. Try filling this out in just 10 minutes—2.5 minutes per question. The first time you do this, you’ll probably be wrong—and you can only learn how you’re wrong by selling.
Component
Prompt
Your Answer
1
“Hell Yes” Customer
“If I could clone one customer… who would I clone and why?”
Write about the person, the company, the industry, etc.
2
Documentary
“What was going on when this Hell Yes customer chose us?”
3
Don’t Get Pigeonholed
“How can I find 3-5+ other customers who are just like our Hell Yes customer?”
4
Case Study Sales
“How do I tell my Hell Yes customer’s story to generate new Hell Yes customers?”
There are no rows in this table
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