This was original posted on LinkedIn.

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Phase 2 - How are we generating interest in our small, hitherto unknown startup, 42ai? 👀

A lot has been said about the significant challenges of generating demand in the Saas industry right now. From our customer research we have a lot of anecdotal feedback indicating times are tough and generating cold interest in your product is particularly difficult… and everything feels ‘cold’ when you have just started a startup.

So, to grow 42ai, we have tried to ditch some of the bad habits of the ZIRP era and hold on to some of the lessons we think will stand the test of time. I credit much of my thinking to Rebeca Kaufmann, our part time GTM wizard, and also those kind enough to lend me their ears and insight.

1. Whether you are a founder or an SDR with 1 month experience, what will never change is the requirement to know your customers’ and personas’ business challenges in a way they do not (we’re not necessarily saying ‘better’). For founders who spend their time doing 150+ research interviews, this is easier and forms the foundation of why founders find it easier to sell in the earlier days. It’s the absolute requirement for forming an advisory relationship with potential customers. As an AE or SDR, you need to find ways to recreate this for yourself - learn, share, get feedback and iterate.

Bottom line: “Be the prey”.

1. Personal or founder brand matters a lot right now. For a startup like 42ai, a significant amount of the early feedback and interest will come from our network and adjacent network. For immediate results and the longer network effect, investing in personal brand, Linkedin content and our position as someone offering helpful perspectives in the market… are non-negotiable for us. But do not be tempted by scaling this via automation - short term it may achieve results, but authenticity will deliver better yields over time. (At 42ai we have 4 content themes, for now -1. Lessons from building a startup, 2. Talking about personas and use-cases, 3. Commentary and perspectives on notable developments in AI). There is proof to this as well - during my time at oyster without question the top BDRs were those who invested in personal brand and Linkedin content.

Bottom line: Establish an authentic, personal brand that is centred around sharing expertise and offering helpful insights and perspectives to your buyers and network. Start small, start simple, but start.

1. Cold outreach at scale (as we know it from the ZIRP era) is economically hard to justify now. If you can do it, lucky you. But if, like 42ai, you are not generating a lot of inbound, then you need to think smart. Whether leadership thinks so or not, the reality is developing interest in your product is taking far longer today. So whether you are a founder or a brand new AE/SDR you are going to have to think differently. We have three key aspects to our approach (Big * here is that we also do not have a board of VCs on our backs either). 1 — You have to find a way to warm relationships up. Today's warm lead was yesterday's cold lead, make it a conscious step in your process. We have experimented (on 0 budget)  with connecting on LI (easier for founders with 10+ yrs experience, my conversion rate is 32%), using early less invasive stages of our beta sales cycles like user-tests or research calls as a way to meet people. Publishing in detail what we are working on on linkedin. While I have seen paid newsletters and publishing learning materials work well for my network. 2 — Be patient. We have urgency across the portfolio of relationships we are building at 42ai, but we cherish each one and avoid as much as possible to rush them. 3 — Engage with those in the ecosystem around your customers, either to learn or to establish a commercial partnership. even if it isn’t your job, you need their perspective and insight to build your own.

Bottom line: Unless it’s under very specific circumstances, it’s likely traditional outbound is economically nonviable at scale for many companies right now. And the only people convincing you otherwise are vendors selling outbound automation.

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So all very good coming from a founder, with a large pre-existing network, 150+ calls worth of learning, 10 years experience working as the target persona and no VC targets. What the fuck do i know?

Well, here’s the bottom bottom line (or at least what i think of it):

The roles of closer, meeting setter, relationship starter, partner manager, content creator, event attendee, demand generator are going to merge a little to a lot over the next 24 months. Even at the SMB sales level. The economics of highly structured teams with specific roles and tasks are far less viable now. More importantly though, in a world with fewer buyers and tighter budgets it is ultimately your ability to build unrivalled knowledge and expertise that can help your buyers that will set you apart. Buyers value advice and insight from one person they can build a trusted relationship with. And you absolutely cannot do that if you are just setting up meetings or if someone is setting up meetings for you. You need innovative ways to generate interest (perhaps beyond what your employer supports you in doing) and a real world, constantly updating understanding of your market from customers, partners and industry experts.

That’s the core of what we are trying to build in our GTM approach here at 42ai. The next challenge will be to make that scale…!

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