Act 1 update

Good morning Predictable Revenue community,

This month, I’m laser-focused on edits and getting the second draft into shape. Right now, I’m deep into Act 1 - the part where I dig into identifying a gap in the market worth solving. It’s not just about spotting an opportunity; it’s about understanding it well enough to build something meaningful. Act 1 is where I feel I add the most unique perspective because I came to customer development from a decade in sales.

Editing, in a way, is easier than writing the first draft - but in other ways, it’s much harder. The easy part? I’ve got guidance from my editor on where to focus, what’s landing, and what could use some polish. But that’s only one part of the process. The real challenge is keeping the entire scope of the book in mind - how each chapter builds to each act, and how each act drives the bigger message. It feels like trying to keep a web of ideas tightly woven while inspecting individual threads to make sure they’re strong.

One of the big challenges right now is keeping the tone consistent across the book. With something this big, it’s easy for the style or structure to shift as I dive into different sections. A lot of this draft is about tightening that structure and building cohesion - threading ideas from Act 1 through the later sections and making sure each chapter naturally leads into the next.

Then there’s the topic of AI. I’ve had plenty of people suggest I use it to help with the writing or editing process, but there’s actually very little AI in the book itself. My most common prompt to GPT is, “make this simpler” - I’ll paste in a sentence or two that just isn’t clicking, and it comes out more streamlined. The only place I’ve leaned heavily on AI was for my bio. Writing about myself always feels awkward, so I fed the manuscript to GPT and asked it to summarize me. It actually did a solid job! It saved me hours of trying to nail down my background without sounding, well, overly self-promotional. Beyond that, though, AI hasn’t been a big part of the process, mostly because I think there’s real value in doing the work myself. Wrestling with a sentence or refining an idea is energy well spent, because it helps me clarify my thinking along the way.

If you’re working on any creative project - whether it’s writing, building a product, or designing a new system - there’s a lot to be said for having both a clear direction and an outside perspective. For me, that’s my editor and you all. I cannot put a price on the impact every reply has had on the shape, direction, and content of this book. Sure, AI can be helpful too, especially for the less inspiring tasks but nothing beats real feedback from real people.

The timing for diving into Act 1 couldn’t have lined up better. This past week, I’ve been deep into some exploratory customer development interviews for a new project, and I think I’ve found something worth digging into further. Next week, I’ll be moving into more targeted interviews, and it’s the perfect chance to test-drive my own process. It’s been a solid way to check my own work—a real “bullshit detector” to see if I actually walk the talk I’ve been preaching, and if these practices are as effective as I think they are.

For the first ten years of my career, sales was all I knew - customer development didn’t even exist to me. But once I learned about the subject, I could see how naturally the two fit together. Sales taught me how to understand people, recognize needs, and focus on what really matters to customers. When I shifted to customer development, it felt like looking at the same thing, just from a different angle - digging into the “why” behind the need rather than just pitching a product to meet it.

Since then, over the past twelve years, I’ve been working with companies to build go-to-market strategies, helping founders launch and fine-tune their first sales efforts. And one thing has stood out to me: too often, entrepreneurs see customer development and sales as separate, disconnected processes. My goal in Act 1 is to help people see the link between them. Treating customer development and sales as parts of the same journey sets a foundation that smooths the transition to market and makes the whole process more effective. If I can help founders understand this connection, it can change the way they think about building and scaling their business.

Just a short update this week, I’ll get back to meatier topics in a few weeks when I’m not spending all my cycles on editing and revising the book.

Collin