7. Get used to hearing no. A lot.
Note: this is Part 7 of Fractionalist’s Startup Fundraising Series for Early Stage Companies.
I see it in early stage founders all of the time. They are off by a step. Not in their rhythm. It was only a few weeks ago that they were so full of piss and vinegar talking about how they were going to take on the world. What happened?
They kept hearing "No".
Well, get used to it.
Investors, advisors, prospective customers, and your mom will all tell you what you're doing is insane. It's stupid. It's a waste of time. You don't have product market fit, you can't possibly compete against the big players or there just is no way there will be a big enough market for Internet from space. No. No. No. It's what you will hear.
Early on when we started Urban Airship, push notifications were a novelty. This is back when Steve Ballmer was calling the iPhone "cute". Inbounds from prospective customers were off the charts and we had gotten some good exposure in the tech press.
The one thing that got me through all of those "NO" responses was listening to our customers. Our product was pretty much just an API with a basic web interface. But it worked. We had great documentation and awesome support. Our customers not only loved it, they kept clamoring for more. Our first few signed deals happened quickly. While we were basically clueless on pricing and packaging, we were able to figure out some really big enterprise deals.
True story; back in 2010, I had a potential investor chastise me for saying the total addressable market for push notifications would never be close to the $1B we had in our projections.
It's worth $8B now and growing 20% YOY.
The moral of the story; listen to your gut, listen to the customers that your product resonates with, and follow the path of least resistance early on while you’re getting to market.
What’s next?
This is part of the Fractionalist Fundraising Series for Early Stage Founders. We always appreciate feedback on the series and we're always here to help you with your fundraising efforts.
Fractionalist helps early stage companies navigate the challenges new companies inevitably face with a team of experienced CxOs you can leverage at a fraction of the cost.