OpenTube

How to Get Your First Customers | Startup School

Y Combinator

661,866 views

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: https://yc.link/SUS-apply
Work at a startup: https://yc.link/SUS-jobs

Chapters (Powered by https://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

20 Comments

@chapterme 3 years ago Pinned

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

@mike5869 1 year ago

Someone like this so i can come back. This is wealth of info

@JonathanLamakag 1 year ago

When Gustaf talks about the trough of sorrow, it resonates. Tools like Rumora AI help keep the momentum without burning cash.

@Modzybear 3 years ago

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

@aajn88 3 years ago (edited)

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

@MeowI-m2r 2 months ago

gustaf's point about doing things that don't scale really got me, manually finding first users is so underrated. some b2b companies just skip the diy route and hire a service like community mentions for the reddit side of it, since it's less about cold outreach and more about showing up in threads where people are already searching, which helps seo and ai search visibility too.

@Vrsxt 7 months ago

This 20min video can be more than a MBA, thank you!

@harrison6082 8 months ago (edited)

I'll definitely want to watch this whole thing again.

9:46 16:04 17:01 18:42 Bookmarks for good spreadsheets

@kussberg 3 years ago

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

@ggg-yc4fl 4 months ago

I’m an engineer and I build products. I built several products and all of them failed. Why? I never talked to my potential customers. I didn’t know where to find them, didn’t know how to approach them, and most of all didn’t feel comfortable talking to people. I finally have realized that talking to potential customers is the first thing I will do with my new product that I’ve launched. This video is all I need to get started.

@cassidy318 9 months ago

Great video. Sales really is a matter of system, volume and strategy. But when you organize your process and have actual visualized data, it removes the fog of confusion of non-conversion

@nwokochagospel7260 3 years ago

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

@vedocapp 3 years ago

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!

@PassionBrains 1 year ago

Thanks! Who's looking additional information for starting own project?

@vpmysteryedits 1 year ago

finally tips that arent super complicated 🙌

@AnnellaLawrence 2 years ago

This is what i needed someone's breakdown this to me- i wish i could hug you

@0RjEIa1A 1 year ago (edited)

for me the biggest lesson is that you need to reach out to 500 prospects to land 2. anyway this video is a must watch.

@teatimewithdre 1 year ago (edited)

i GENERALLy just listen to YC videos in the background without paying attention. This one had serious bars in it, wow!!! on repeat!

@MizukaMotorsports 10 months ago

This changed my view on my MVP I think I need absolute bare bone MVP since no one is doing what we are doing also love how this video reminded me I haven't done enough outreach so far