Will you be one of our 1st 100 customers?
The significance of the 1st 100 customers is something that I have only recently learned about.
As we come out of our build phase (we have been building since Aug 20, it seems like forever!) I have been researching some best practices for marketing/selling Saas products. Its actually really nice to get my head back into marketing, and go over some of the principles that I learnt at business school and have been using for the last 20years as a marketer/ business owner. I’ll also hopefully learn some new ones; as Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company and pioneer of mass production, said:
Looking for Nuggets
There is alot of white noise out there, lots of people who are “experts”, so its hard to find the nuggets.
One of the fist nuggets that I found was from John Kim, CEO of Sendbird, the world’s leading chat API powering over 200M people’s conversation every month. It was posted 3years ago but I think still holds some real pointers not just for Saas but for any business.
His thesis is that the 1st 100 customers are your unique, high-value customers that will help you build your product. Your objective should be aimed at getting these 1st 100 customers, after which you can switch gears through scaling to get to the next 1,000 customers.
Problems & Advantages with the 1st 100 Customers
As a new startup you have some key problems to overcome:
- No Brand
- No Credibility
- No Reliability
- Not Prepared
However, you and your 1st 100 customers have some big advantages:
- Its you as founder/ CEO who has direct access to the customer, and vice versa
- There is a faster feedback loop on your product about what works best, what needs improving, etc
- There is accelerated learning for both you and your customers on how best to use the product
So if you are interested in finding out how our system can help you increase sales & save costs then please reach out. As one of our 1st 100 customers, I’d would be very honoured to help us both develop!