First customer! (Ditch the delusion of big launch)

I've been giving out crispy beef jerky samples to friends. I was scheduling to meet up this one friend many times then always something came up on her side (she runs a startup and was busy raising an additional round at that time).

One day, she just placed an order for her office. They were driving up to SF for a conference and wanted a snack for the road for 4 people. I was like... OK! It was my first time facing questions like how much do I charge, what is a good selling unit, and such.

It was a great exercise. We fixed the selling unit at 10 bags, which matched perfectly with our small scale production. For each batch, we produced about 12 bags, so those extra could go for other friends to try. That was great to keep the ball rolling.

When other friends heard about that sale, they went, "Oh, Can you do that? I want to buy too. They were delicious!"

Same here. We didn't think of selling until that friend asked.

**Disclaimer **
All meat for public consumption in the U.S. must be inspected by USDA. Because of that, we only opened up for close friends (as if you hosted a party and your friends insisted to venmo you kind of way). That's how ideas get validated before you get confident enough to take it to the commercial level (c.f. The New Primal founder started selling to coworkers).

I am sharing this with IH community hoping that someone will benefit from my story.