#012 - How I Got My First Customer (I didn't even have a company name yet!) (2-min)

I just got my first customer!!!

$600 over 12 months!

Craziest part?

I didn't even have a company name and my cold emails were from my gmail address!

wtf? lol

So how did this happen?

Let me explain.

My Idea

My idea is to build engineering team profiles for companies to help them hire senior engineers.

My Outreach

So for me all my outreach is via cold email.

And with each email I attach a custom example profile. It has their logo, company description...

My goal with this is to "Show, Don't Tell."

Here's what the example profiles look like:

My Cold Email

And here's the exact cold email I'm using.

It's short, to the point, and based around how the idea benefits them.

Check it out:

So with this first customer the CTO connected me with their Head of HR.

HR asked me for my "terms and contract..."

I got pretty nervous here,

because, to be honest, I didn't even have a company name! lol

So here's what I did.

I listed exactly what I'd do in as short as steps as possible and I listed the benefits...

After that, I anchored the price.

I said, "Normally it's $1800/yr. Bc we're in beta, so it's $600/yr."

Then below, I asked them to share their concerns.

My thought was hear concerns is much better than getting a "No"

I also gave the HR exec the example profile so they could "see it" too.

To my surprise, they literally said, "Let's do it" and asked me to send over an invoice.

Soooo

Deciding a Name

I guess this is where Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc. creates a company name? lol

I made a list of name ideas at 5:52am and...

We chose: aboutus.dev!

From there, I designed this simple invoice and sent it over to them using Hello Sign.

And last night they signed it wit CC # and everything!

It felt so good! I finally got a customer.

I swear I had as much adrenaline running thru my blood as when I'm surfing 20ft Ocean Beach.

My biggest learning?

Build in a high-value space.

I worked on ideas for years in markets where people aren't willing AND able to pay.

It's fucking draining.

Now, I'm in engineer recruiting where companies pay $20K+ to hire a good engineer.

Much better chance for success.