Why Shouldn't We DM Potential Users?
Saw this post https://twitter.com/sahilypatel/status/1427651378977988611:
"Best startups are those whose founders don't DM 100+ people to join the waitlist
These startups grow through WOM Fire"
Many people agreed this post. But it confused me. How are we supposed to get WOM without DMing people? How are we supposed to get attention if we're bootstrapping without first getting one on one attention. I've been doing so much dming. Am I doing this wrong?
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If you already have an audience, sure, his advice applies.
If you're starting from scratch, go ahead and DM people.
That's literally how I got my first 10 paying customers for Zlappo.
Now I have hundreds of them through word-of-mouth.
What platform did you use? Twitter DM's?
Yes, Twitter only.
In fact, I wrote about it here:
https://zlappo.com/blog/4-powerful-ways-grow-and-market-your-saas-business-using-twitter-examples-given/
Keep in mind this is the opinion of one guy. I have had two CEOs I trust tell me the opposite. Just be respectful
Are they running the company you want to run?
Nothing wrong with selling, but if you want a self service SaaS you're not proving anything by doing cold DMs.
You can still grow through sales + WOM. Somehow you have to get your first few customers and building an audience / marketing is not the only way to get there :).
I disagree with this. Having people sign up and pay you money would prove market fit. Then you just need to worry about marketing it. All the best marketing in the world can't fix a lack of a market fit. Finding a market fit seems to be the most important thing at the start.
Agreed that finding PMF is the most important thing.
But that wouldn't prove market fit.
That would prove user/customer fit.
Market fit is having a channel you can use to scale that is profitable.
Also founders can be amazing at sales and overpromise. It would take months to see if they churn.
That is something completely different. You can have PMF without having a single channel that is scalable but the combination of channels make it scalable. Also, you can have PMF without it being scalable. I know lots of people want to build big massive things but some markets are just small, they're niche markets.
"self service" SaaS?
Customers can sign up without a sales demo.
If your DM shows effort I’m all for it, too many times it’s just very spammy or literally a copy paste message.
TRY EVERYTHING - there's more than one way to climb a tree! Do what's ever necessary to get those first 10, 100, 1000 users. Your strategy will evolve over time but you only learn what works for YOU by EXPERIMENTATION.
But with all your cold outreach, do try to take the time to personalize things, know who you're talking to and try to lead with value/help rather than cold selling.
WOM is built by customers, not by companies.
You want your best customers DMing their friends/colleagues. No one wants to get a cold sales DM, but people love recommendations from friends.
There are plenty of other ways to get your first customers. My favorite way is SEM/SEO, but there's also forums like Reddit that you can post to publicly. Or you can answer questions on Quora. Or you can put your product into marketplaces where people look for solutions to their problems.
I agree with the quote - not because DMing people never works, but because it's a scapegoat for the real work it takes to build a business. DMing people doesn't scale, and if you never put in the work to do things that do scale you'll have a hard time growing.
Most successful B2B startups have a dedicated sales team. Why shouldn't we do sales? It's one of the most efficient way to get the word around about your business. You can actually target your outreach properly vs content marketing guessing game. Also, remember "Do things that don't scale" [1]
[1] http://paulgraham.com/ds.html
If it makes you feel any better, there are a number of people disagreeing as well. The post itself and most people agreeing are focused on the idea that great startups grow by word of mouth because they have a great product / a great value proposition.
I think the part about founders who DM 100+ people is meant to be relatable for other people who have been annoyed at getting cold messages reeking of desperation from founders who aren't promoting their startup in any other way.
At the end of the day, like others have said, whether or not DMing people is a good idea depends on your business and what you're hoping to achieve by doing so. It feels like there are almost always tons of higher leverage ways to get early customers, but IMO there's nothing with strategic DMing!
Depends on the company you want to run.
As a Founder of the marketplace, I think if I want to reach more sellers in early stage, the best option is to contact the potential sellers (at least the first 50) directly in their DMs.
Sometimes your potential customers want to know who's the owner so they can trust you and the company.
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.