both.

this is 4 years ago, the market we were going after were the cloud warehouses like Redshift, BigQuery and Snowflake.

In the beginning, we just had an idea for a specific product / service. but we knew that the customer would be the lonely data engineer in charge of building the analytics stack.

I started with cold outreach via my network and linkedin. I would use pretty broad language around data warehouse usage, to cast a wide net with terms like "usage, performance, metadata, etc.", and cover all potential use cases. Engineers are always short on time, so you need to be affirmative, authoritative and present a clear ask that shows what you want and how the engineer will get value out of spending 30 min with you.

Of course I pulled the founder card, and that does help. I made it clear that we don't have a product, but working on building one. Turns out that most people are helpful, and want you to win!

The first signal that you're onto something is when they reply to your message, and are intrigued.

we built our first product around that feedback. Companies like Postmates, WeWork and Udemy bought version 0.5!

I made a point out of keeping in touch with every customer, and do a quarterly check-in. What's changed? What are your plans? For this coming week, month, quarter and year. Where do you want to be in 2 years? What problems are you trying to solve for your company? What are the expectations for you and your team? What tools are you using to solve that problem? What tools have you looked at and decided to not use them, and why? Etc., etc.

I rolled around in THEIR situation, trying to walk in their shoes. We'd talk for sometimes 90 minutes, often in person here in SF, over lunch. We'd often not cover our product until the final 5 minutes.

Of course, that's a huge chunk of time out of your calendar. Huge opportunity cost, in particular for a founder.

So here's actually something I'd do different. We hired our first sales reps after our first 10 customers. That was a mistake. Our product was very technical, it's not like selling email software. So you need a technical rep. Our first rep was a class act, but let me tell you, it was a goat rodeo for him.

Rather, I should have hired a customer success person, and have them do the quarterly check-ins. That way I could have kept selling. Then let the customer success rep also write (technical) blog post, customer stories / case studies, and documentation. You're building out (credible) marketing materials that build the top of your funnel.

> Rather, I should have hired a customer success person

Also called a Field Application Engineer in some circles.

> Then let the customer success rep also write (technical) blog post, customer stories / case studies, and documentation.

Also sample code, sample scripts.

Spot on, that’s exactly it.

Wow. Thanks a lot. That’s very specific and actionable. Any other thing you would do differently this time around? I’m in the middle of starting something new myself.

BTW: feels like you could write an entire book about your experience ;)

#1 thing - I would raise less money for our seed. We raised $4.2M incl a note that converted from the angel round.

Too much money gives you a false sense of security.