🚀 How do I do founder-led sales?

3 tactics for effective outreach

🦈 Don’t be afraid to go after the big fish

• Many founders start small, fearing they’ll waste an intro to a key player before their pitch is polished. But, you need feedback from your biggest potential customers to build effectively.

• As long as it’s not framed as a direct sales call, you won’t burn your chance. In fact, you’ll start building important relationships early on.

• Save direct sales for when you have live partnerships and customers.

🧠 The “expert interview” hack 

• People love sharing their expertise—use that to your advantage.

• Frame your conversation as an expert interview to understand their perspectives—ask how experts view their industry.

• Keep it high-level—focus on their insights about the market.

• Always ask, “Who else in your org would be interested in chatting?”

• Set up a follow-up in a few months when you have more progress to show.

📩 Cold emails that don’t get ignored 

• Find common ground—alumni ties, past companies, or shared investors.

• Target people who’ve engaged with key pages (like your pricing page).

• Use founder-to-founder empathy: “Are you thinking about this the same way?” and "I struggled with this problem—if you are too, check out [solution]."

• Conferences = gold. Reach out to attendees before the event.

• Keep your CTA simple and specific—make it easy for them to say yes.

2 traps to avoid

🚨Focusing too much on your product

• Starting with how great your product is can turn people off right away.

• Lead with genuine curiosity about the problem you’re solving—ask how others are thinking about it.

🚨Getting sugarcoated feedback from warm intros

• Over-relying on warm intros often leads to polite but unhelpful feedback.

• Go for the unfiltered truth—ask the tough questions and get honest feedback.

1 tool to leverage

✉️ Best practice for outreach emails

• Subject line should be under 40 characters 

• Message should be personalized and under 100 words.

• Leverage tools like CapGo to speed up research for personalizing emails.