5 things you need to win your first customer

A startup is a beautiful thing. It’s the tangible outcome of an idea birthed in a garage or on the back of a napkin. But ask any founder what really proves their startup has taken off, and they will almost instantly say it’s when they win their first customer.

That’s easier said than done, though, because winning that first customer will take a lot more than an Ivy-educated founder and/or a celebrity investor pool.

To begin with, you’ll have to craft a strong ideal customer profile to know your customer’s pain points, while developing a competitive SWOT analysis to scope out alternatives your customers can go to.

You’ll also need to create a shortlist of influencers who have your customer’s trust, identify their decision-makers who make the call to buy (or not), and create a mapped list of goals that align your customer’s goals to yours.

Understanding and executing on these things can guarantee you that first customer win, provided you do them well and with sincerity. Your investors will also see the fruits of your labor and be comforted knowing their dollars are at good work.

Let’s see how:

1. Craft the ideal customer profile (ICP)

The ICP is a great framework for figuring out who your target customer is, how big they are, where they operate, and why they exist. As you write up your ICP, you will soon see the pain points you assumed about them start to become more real.

To create an ICP, you will need to have a strong articulation of the problem you are trying to solve and the customers that experience this problem the most. This will be your baseline hypothesis. Then, as you develop your ICP, keep testing your baseline hypothesis to weed out inaccurate assumptions.

Getting crystal clear here will set you up with the proper launchpad. No shortcuts.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Develop an ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) framework.
2. Identify three target customers that fit your defined ICP.
3. Write a problem statement for each identified target customer.
4. Prioritize the problem statement that resonates with your product the most.
5. Lock on the target customer of the prioritized problem statement.

Practice use case:

You are the co-founder at an upcoming SaaS startup focused on simplifying the shopping experience in car showrooms so buyers enjoy the process. What would your ICP look like?

2. Develop the SWOT

The SWOT framework cannot be overrated. This is a great structure to articulate who your competitors are and how you show up against them. Note that your competitors can be direct or indirect (as an alternative), and it’s important to categorize these buckets correctly.

The best way to start thinking about the SWOT is to first see your product through the eyes of your customer. If you were in their shoes, what would you say are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?

Go criss-cross — write down your strengths, then your threats, followed by your weaknesses, and then your opportunities. Writing the SWOT in this approach will bring balance to the exercise and reflect your reality better.

Understand the market before targeting your customer. The other way around doesn’t work.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Identify the competitors/alternatives to your product.
2. Perform a SWOT analysis on your product against each competitor/alternative.
3. Identify the competitors/alternatives available to your customer.
4. Do a SWOT analysis on your customer against each competitor/alternative.
5. Match your product and customer analyses to articulate where/how your strengths/opportunities can complement their weaknesses/threats.

Practice use case:

You were recently hired as the CMO at an established physical retail chain that is looking to forage into e-commerce channels. What would your SWOT framework look like?

3. Shortlist the influencers

Most people today make buying decisions only after consulting a trusted source. This source could be a person, a forum or a community. It’s important to identify who has your customer’s ear when it comes to a decision on whether to buy your product.

Approach it from the top down. Meaning, start with your customer’s industry and identify the influential voices in that industry (e.g., a podcaster, an analyst forum, a research firm, etc.). Then shortlist who you can reach, and then develop an outreach campaign in the form of reports, webinars, emails, interviews or social targeting their goals.

These goals could be as simple as data and information on the industry itself, but through your eyes. Basically, create value for your target customer’s influencers and influence their voices to champion your cause.

Influencers are vital to that first customer win. Respect them, and they will bring respect to you.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Identify the industry that your customer operates in.
2. Look up communities, reports, news outlets, etc. on this industry that are most visible.
3. Shortlist the communities that have recently or publicly mentioned your customer.
4. Identify the promoters/creators of these outlets.
5. Execute an outreach/drip campaign to these promoters/creators.

Practice use case:

You are an adviser brought in by a high-growth startup to figure out why their sales have been plateauing despite early product-market fit. How would you identify their product influencers?

4. Identify the decision-makers

So far, we were mostly referring to your customer as a single entity. While that may be technically true, your customer is made up of human beings. And some of these people have more authority than others.

Start by looking up your customer’s organization chart and find the leader that would align closest to the problem you are trying to solve. Learn more about what’s important to the leader through a LinkedIn and Twitter search.

Next, create an engagement motion targeting them with cold calls and invitations to webinars, panels, industry reports and anything that would add value.

Knowing your decision-maker(s) will help you see yourself through their lens. How’s the view?

Here’s how to get started:

1. Look up news/articles/blogs about your customer and identify the voices.
2. Shortlist the voices that consistently show up the most in these posts.
3. Prioritize the shortlisted voice most relevant to your product narrative.
4. Research the shortlisted voice on social platforms to gauge interests, passions.
5. Engage with your shortlisted voice through a cold call or champion introduction.

Practice use case:

You are the newly promoted head of marketing at a midsized company and have been asked to target higher-value customers in your scope. Who are the decision-makers at your first prospect?

5. Create a mapped list of goals

Your target customer will pick a solution that will help them achieve their goals. In other words, your goals should align with your customer’s goals. You can achieve this alignment when you have done the previous steps well, resulting in your hypothesis of your target customer’s business.

At this stage, you are taking what you have learned through execution and creating a list of goals that you believe your customer is going after. Once you have that list, write down a list of your own goals. And then, match.

Do the two lists match? If yes, great, you’re on your way to winning your target customer. If no, then go back to Step 1 because you have missed a critical piece of the value equation.

Don’t try to prove something to your target customer. Prove something with them.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Look up news/articles/blogs/announcements about your target customer.
2. Hypothesize their goals and objectives using insights from your research.
3. Confirm your hypothesis through interviews with your engaged voices/champion.
4. Develop your product positioning, messaging and sales decks.
5. Execute an outreach/drip campaign to leaders at your target customer.

Practice use case:

You are the CEO of an edtech startup aiming to help high schools streamline teaching and collaboration for their students. How do your goals map to your target customer’s goals?

So there you have it. Invest in these five steps early on, and you will be setting the foundation to win your first customer and many more to come. Now let’s get started on that logo wall.