Business and money
Win your first ten paying customers
Almost everyone starting out plans the product. Nobody plans the customers — and yet a business does not begin with a product, it begins with the first people who pay.
What the plan does
Breaks the path to ten paid orders into weekly counts of conversations, offers and closes — and keeps you from building instead of selling.
Who it is for
For anyone who has something to offer but nobody has paid for it yet. Even if it is not quite finished.
How the plan runs
One group of people, one problem
Name people specifically, and a problem they already pay to have solved. “Small businesses” is a vague brief and produces vague outreach that nobody answers.
Then conversations, before anything gets built
A set number of conversations a week, counted. Most weeks hold more talking than building — building is pleasant and looks like work, but it does not bring customers.
Ask for money early
On the smallest possible version of the offer. One real sale teaches more than a month of preparation, because that is where you find out what people actually want.
Improve the product last
Guided by what buyers said, not by what seemed likely. The unglamorous parts are tasks too: how to take payment, what the first message says, what to answer when someone says it is too expensive.
When you fall behind
Product work gets cut and the conversations stay. That is the exact opposite of what you will feel like doing.
What we will ask you
- What are you selling, and what stage is it at?
- How many people know about it today?
- What holds you back most?
The plan is built around your answers: broken down into years, months, weeks and finally today. With rest written into it, and recalculated every time the route and reality part ways.
Start with this template