How to Get Your First Customers | Startup School

YC Partner & Former Head of Growth at Airbnb, Gustaf Alströmer, gives tactical advice to answer the question: how do I get my first customers? Gustaf will cover this topic for all kinds of companies - whether you're B2B or B2C.
Apply to Y Combinator: yc.link/SUS-apply
Work at a startup: yc.link/SUS-jobs
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 - Introduction
00:20 - Outline
00:44 - Do things that don't scale
03:40 - Founders should learn how to do sales
08:45 - The sales funnel
13:50 - Charging your first customer
15:24 - Working backwards from your goal
19:51 - Summary
#startup #tech #entrepreneur

[@chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Introduction 00:20 - Outline 00:44 - Do things that don't scale 02:17 - Startup curve 03:40 - Founders should learn how to do sales 05:07 - Brex (YC W2017) 06:38 - How to write a great sales email 08:45 - The sales funnel 10:41 - Your first customer should be your easiest 13:50 - Charging your first customer 15:24 - Working backwards from your goal 18:18 - Sales and go-to-market strategy 19:29 - YC emails that led to customers 19:51 - Summary 20:08 - Resources - Tools and books 21:28 - Non scalable way to SEM and SEO

[@chapterme]

@@alainportant6412 the video was created and was saved as unlisted 4 weeks ago but was posted publicly a few hours back! 😃

[@Modzybear]

I appreciate this breakdown from Paul Rudd's more technical brother.

[@gustaf]

😂

[@sherrysyed]

ahahahahahhaha

[@joshuahurt5939]

Lmaooo 😂💀

[@ChrisAthanas]

On point Was waiting for punchlines

[@viluhomes2647]

@@sherrysyed wh

[@aajn88]

I don’t know how many times I’ve watch this video and still I keep learning from it. Thanks for this Gustaf!

[@chintaki]

Dude, you made easy for all of us in less than 23 minutes. I just received a pat for myself knowing I am thinking correctly in some areas. The slap on my neurons was don't outsource sales. Hope they are listening. Thanks a lot and next time block I am going to search for your videos. 💌from India

[@nwokochagospel7260]

I completely love these new style of videos, it keeps me anticipating for more. Great Job Sir Garry🙌🏽

[@ycombinator]

Glad you like it! - Zach

[@ronjeremy1232]

@@ycombinator who is zach

[@kussberg]

Probably most amazing video on sales for startups I watched! Thank you!

[@latu3585]

This has been one of the best videos I've ever seen from YC. Super useful.

[@amischthaker]

This is an excellent "How to do sales at the beginning" video. Would request YC to have more video around sales. B2B, B2C etc.

[@danielgrinshpun]

Great video! We discuss these points on a weekly basis with my SaaS clients, so great to see a successful SaaS founder re-iterating the importance of these things. Love this new format where you show specific examples & stories from other founders: - Cold outreach email from Brex + breakdown - Which first customers to go after + google sheet template - The importance of charging your first customers. - How most successful startups didn't start with scalable growth channels. Thanks Gustaf & YC. Looking forward to future videos!

[@raminajem274]

This is probably the best video on the internet about this topic. Thank you!

[@JetSoftProHQ]

What an insightful session on kickstarting customer acquisition! The idea of doing things that don't scale resonates deeply, as early interactions can set the tone for long-lasting relationships.

[@clavid87]

This feels very SaaS/B2B. What about consumer?

[@BarryFranks]

Love these videos. My one criticism is based on the assertion that Sales is "probably the easiest job to learn at your start up" if you don't have a background in it. Technical founders without a background in sales struggle with this - and it's many times the reason a startup never gets off the ground.

[@SleepyPaul]

I’d argue it’s the number 1 reason companies fail. Either they don’t do sales, do the wrong types or spend to much on it. The issue here is YC confirmation bias. They have so much brand recognition and connections that companies who go thru YC don’t have has hard a time upfront selling as non-YC do

[@aligulaj]

It is interesting listening to this talk and realizing i have made a good number of these mistakes ....wow....i know have a good idea on what to do. Thank you guys

[@amanketebo]

Awesome video and thank you for all the great information!

[@vedocapp]

We got our first customers by doing a simple google search of social groups who we were targeting, reached out to several organizer and eventually we got a hit. It does take the right email, established team but if you have the basics you can bet someone out there is dealing with the problem you are solving!

[@fabricioRegisCanal]

Gustaf, this class was really incredible! Thanks!

[@soumen_das]

Grt video! Love the actionable insights! Pls keep them coming.

[@StreamAgency]

Great visualization of the startup curve.

[@chan90s]

Hey YC, can you make a video on how to reach out to customers as a first time entrepreneur venturing into a new industry. It's incredibly tough to get proper opinions and feedback unless there is a personal connection or a mutual friend in the domain.

[@Levnerad]

Build a social media following on twitter, KZbin, or medium. That gives you legitimacy

[@archiee1337]

This is the best video for early stage startups ever. Love it. Thank you, thank you!!!!!

[@siansroadtonirvana]

This was great! Thank you for sharing!

[@rodolfokohn3414]

Great video! Very elucidative! Thanks!

[@ahmedyahya3593]

I really love this guy, thanks my man🤝

[@tranthenhat5602]

great, thank you Gustaf and YC.

[@sto700]

I love that article by paul graham. Such a great insight

[@dollaya8893]

Thank you so much. It helps me a lot.

[@nwokochagospel7260]

YC will have 1m+ subscribers by March 2023. Who's with me on this.🙋🏽‍♂️

[@posthocprior]

This is very general, mostly good, advice. I'm the founder of a SAAS startup. All of these points need to be quantitatively further defined. It's difficult, for instance, to "work backwards" in your sales funnel if you can't quantify who is more likely to be a customer than not. (Btw, I found charging for your product, at first, to be the most counter intuitive advice. We haven't been doing this and are going to start -- and see what difference this makes.)

[@ismaeladamsoule8203]

result for the charging?

[@ChrisWilliams808]

I really loved this video and immediately added to my favorites. I will be watching again, and again, and again.... The part about the sales funnel was useful to understand the metrics involved in getting a paying customer. But how do you find the 500 customers to add to the funnel? Do you suggest buying lists? What about if we have customers from product A we've sold, but we want to sell product B, but we know they're not the target customer. Should we send mail and say "please forward to your IT department", for example?

[@davidsheu2436]

Besides your network, how else do you find qualified prospects and feed the top of the funnel? There has to be more than leads databases.

[@Merianayahya]

Thankss!!! Very technical❤

[@IgorIvanchenkoChinese]

super info! I am looking for business hustlers to brainstorm ideas. Thanks!

[@prdyzor]

Wow, everything I need i 20 minutes, incredible

[@dosytung86]

Thank you so much for valuable instruction, may I have the link of Atlanta bog that you mention in the video. Thank you so much!

[@colbr6733]

Very useful, thanks.

[@drtech6521]

One word, AMAZING!!!! ❤

[@xavierabdulkarem5057]

This will help to launch my tech startup in the future I.a

[@educationforeveryone214]

So much valued video bro. 😊

[@AnyScribeIO]

An insightful video

[@RecipesLive]

Thank you, a very thoughtful presentation, personally I never open emails, not that I am not curious. Just a lack of trust.

[@AlexMacGregor]

Great advice!!!

[@hutchinsolutions7665]

Concise and to the point! Great strategies...

[@Thebeautiverse]

Amazing video!

[@glauberbannwart7165]

The tips for building a product are useful, but there are certain limitations that the product development team may face, especially if the founders are non-tech and/or have difficulty putting together a team to create a minimum viable product. In this case, it may be more advisable for the founders to become full-stack developers themselves and pursue a different idea, as the timing for the original idea may have passed. It is uncommon to receive investment during the bootstrapping process, but it can help develop a product if you have already gained some sales. If the founding team is struggling to raise funding in a developing country, it may face a higher risk of failure and financial debt. It is important to understand the culture of the local market of investors in order to create a business idea with the potential for exponential growth. Tackling a true problem not always is achievable, especially if the market & team conditions impose certain constraints.

[@samsrilanka]

Valuable video!

[@chrisevans2241]

Thank You!

[@billprin]

Great video. I really like content with more tactical tips like this.

[@minc33]

Will this series on Startup School continue? If so, how often can we expect new videos? Great work, btw! I'm working at an Ed-Tech Startup right now (second full-time hire) that has been growing quite rapidly and these vids are super useful for me, since I don't actually have a business background.

[@ycombinator]

We have about 6 more videos in the works that will be published every other week

[@stonier92]

Hello,How did you get your initial clients? Are they through cold emails or advertising?

[@CezAgora]

Regarding the fact that we should avoid offering free trials, I can see how offering a money back guarantee or opt-out can be a good approach for subscription based pricing model, I wonder which is the recommended approach for transaction fee based pricing?

[@zeydtc]

This is gold!

[@koikahi]

How would your recommend we allocate time for product dev, investor pitching and sales - i think of these three as pillars of founding a company in first 6 months. As a tech founder, I tend to fall overly in love with the problem statement and solutioning.

[@trennmeddl]

Great video! One question tho: How do you get the e-mails of your potential customers efficiently?

[@APD606]

I am planning how to launch and marketing my products as beginners.. Thanks..

[@NokthulaMadondo]

This was fire🔥🔥🔥. There were flames all over this video, from beginning to end. I nearly called fire fighters, it was that smoking hot. (and yes I am that corny). Seriously though, this was insane.

[@nguyenbang4942]

Thanks so much

[@krishnachhajed1813]

Why are most videos made on "acquiring the first few customers" mostly focused on B2B? How to tackle this issue for B2C, fintech startups? Influencer marketing, running ads, and PR are these the only way to go for B2C, fintech startups? It would be great if you could make a video for B2C founders.

[@maze.p]

Yeah it is not totally clear if he also thinks this is the way to go for B2C companies. But I think that he means that either B2B and B2C companies should sell the first customers directly - also to learn more about their problems which helps in all facets of the company.

[@nuhhassan8557]

How should i word the subject field for the email?

[@Math_kru_earng]

Thanks !!

[@martinstine]

Thanks again Gustaf. Great job YC.

[@antoinelb8509]

Sad that the resource (Lenny's Newsletter) has a paywall

[@ethanjones.]

What website do you use or app to track email engagement?

[@christobalmendoza9363]

What software do you guys use to track data?

[@Baltictravellerblog]

What are the best websites where I can find lists of newest stratups? I am launching a CRM platform, and I would like to target mainly early stage startups. Thanks! P.S. I loved the video, a lot of great tips!

[@chinfanster]

How do you know they open the emails?

[@MartinA-oz6em]

Is cold emailing allower in the US?

[@qureshiowais6951]

Any book for market reserch i want to check my idea and get insight

[@rohan7kohli]

Can I get the slides somewhere?

[@zzzggg388]

It's easy. You get admitted to YC and they other YC companies become your customer. Then you raise a big round and do online advertisement and get customers unporfitably.

[@sherrysyed]

Ah. Industry Norms expedite processes which is why these things are important to learn.

[@user-vy9mj3up6m]

fantastic

[@raymondlam9999]

So the ideas of unscalable is to the activities a founder does. To narrow down a market first before reaching out. "Unscalable" doesn't mean building an "Unscalable" product/service right.... ?

[@joshking9537]

Working on a prop tech idea for property managers, having really tough luck with cold outreacH ( dont have much social proof). Any suggestions for growth?

[@temez1]

Forget growth. Sounds like the message is not working or you are not sending enough messages as said in the video. In the former case, talk to users to understand their problem better and refine the message accordingly.

[@Eltonlin1998]

For founders who currently don't have a love for solving customer problems, how do you acquire it? (other than don't start a startup)

[@Eltonlin1998]

Or is it just a symptom of poor customer fit e.g. if my customers don't like watching videos, but I'm a video-based learning platform

[@alamskmustafin4544]

Great 👍

[@boringmanager9559]

I used to think getting software to work was the hardest part. That's until I got my MVP and tried to sell it to customers

[@Guustaaf]

What happened to the audio?

[@samrasoli]

useful

[@Sanerah]

How about "free" as in transaction fee, e.g. AirBnb.

[@mgill404pfft]

what in the world is he saying is the blog at 18:21? I can't decipher what he is saying.

[@ycombinator]

www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growing-b2b-businesses

[@stephenstanton6860]

Any reason why not to use html in the email? I would think it makes it look more professional.

[@quentin2578]

Because your email then has a higher chance of landing in one's ''promotions'' inbox.

[@SteveBoyer10]

It looks more personal if you don’t use html. HTML emails look like marketing messages.

[@sharathkumar83]

Technical reason being, what if the entire email message is broken, images not loading, link not working or may be structure of email is not loading properly.

[@josephjones7878]

Who does your video edits?

[@monotheist..]

do thing that didnt scale in early to know more avout customer

[@JBulsa]

List the 4 web tools, 2 books 📚

[@monotheist..]

working backward so you know youllneed to sent more email cuz the turn rate sooo small

[@JustPlainRob]

"The through of sorrow" lmao It's "trough" pronounced "troff" A long, wide, low container used for feeding groups of livestock.

[@andreaslanvin4411]

Feedback : French subtitles pls (there is a lot of business words)

[@SebastianZavala-rc1yi]

why is reply rate 5% when is 20 replies out of 250 which is 8% even if its out of outreach it should be 4%

[@mishthiexplores3732]

Doing things that don't even scale up is one of the major ways of execution adopted by "AIR BNB" one of the biggest hotel chain industries

[@mishthiexplores3732]

Founded in 2008

[@sherrysyed]

All they talk about is scaling 😛 I’m kidding they’re great!

[@nwokochagospel7260]

🙄🙄🙄

[@ambitionhut]

Why is it a bad idea to offer trials, or even fremium products in b2b? I dont get the whole argument.

[@manangarg1]

0:41

[@bjaxx8]

30 minute video and you didn’t mention one time to pick up the phone to call a potential customer. Why not?

[@yeeitmete]

16:00

[@rosegold.sunset4749]

I know he's speaking in plain English but I found his cadence hard to follow and many words sounded jumbled/ pronunciation difficult to understand -- is it just me?

[@sharathkumar83]

am seeing he looking at something and reading, not sure why.

[@h4ribo5]

sound is filtered, it is hard to understand what he is saying

[@andreibogdan81]

I hate so, so very much how he reads the teleprompter and also fiddles with himself while doing so. It gave me anxiety, had to switch tabs and just listen :))

[@gustaf]

Sorry about that. I will do better next time

[@ishant2963]

Hello

[@COLD17]

That video is a bit generic and looks like it was created for a b2b product where retention matters. What about one time fee products in the b2c industry? Not everything is worth a subscription...

[@jeremyd4037]

This is remarkably bad for a video from a prominent accelerator. Good info, but just so poorly presented and underwhelmingly done.

[@saladgas]

Hard to get reply on LinkedIn for my query, hope someone from YC replies (You guys might get this question a lot, but honestly don't know a better way of inquiring directly): Query: When i try applying to YC, the information during the signup and registration with required details feels like to me(third person) as more concentrated towards people with idea, a website, other details from point of view of someone already started with it. What about a person who is not necessarily developing but has a few market areas in mind from research to build something, and hoping to get connected with people and have some guidance in the journey?. Could such a person still apply?, if so what are the chances for that person getting accepted?