building momentum

Good morning Predictable Revenue community,

Book update, I’m handing in my final draft next Wednesday! It’s sitting at 49k words and I’m still skeptical that I wrote them all. Over the next few weeks, my focus will shift from writing to spreading the word. The way I’m thinking about doing that is by creating helpful resources for early stage founders - if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. 

Community update, by the time this email lands in your inbox we’ll be in the middle of our first < $500k ARR founder meetup. I’m thinking of doing this monthly so let me know if you’d like to jump in on the next one. I’ve also heard interest from a few folks with over $500k in ARR, if that sounds like you, hit reply and I’ll set one up. 

A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a post on Revenue Planning and explained why most early-stage startups shouldn’t jump straight into building a sales development (SDR) team. If you missed it you can read it and all my past posts here. Today’s newsletter expands on that advice by exploring strategies for founders who need to create momentum in the next 6 to 12 months, not 24.

TL;DR - if You Missed It
If you’re an early-stage founder (especially under $1M ARR) who needs to show traction for a new funding round in the next 6–12 months, building an SDR team won’t deliver fast enough. Outbound takes time—around 24 months to really pay off—so you’re better off leveraging a founder-led sales and customer development approach to generate both learning and revenue on a shorter timeline. Once you’ve proved your process works, then you can scale an SDR team.

Building Momentum
Rather than making a big bet on one channel, consider smaller, consistent efforts that build momentum. Think of these habits as the compound interest of startup growth—steady actions can accumulate quickly and require a lot less overhead than hiring, training, and managing new people. Here are six habits I’ve come to practice every week when I’m doing something new: 

1. Founder-led prospecting - Email a minimum of 50 people to add to your customer development funnel

2. Content creation - Write a piece of content related to the problem you’re solving 

3. Advice - Get advice on what to do next from one entrepreneur 

4. Get feedback - Meet with all your customers, ask for feedback and referrals

5. Work your customer development funnel - Reach out to 10 people you’ve interviewed and invite them to the next step 

6. Planning - Plan the big 1-3 things you’re going to move forward next week

Founder-Led Prospecting
Founder-led sales development starts with proving the process yourself, rather than handing it off to an SDR team. Begin by building a large but carefully filtered list of founders and CEOs at your target accounts. Reach out with short, personalized emails requesting feedback, advice, or help, and send at least 100 of these weekly. I also recommend supplementing these with a cold LinkedIn process where you’re adding contacts and including a short “looking for advice” message in the note. I recommend doing most of this by hand, without the support of automation just yet. Running through the steps manually helps find gaps in the process or errors in the targeting. 

If your problem resonates, you can expect to book a meeting per week (and more if you’re onto something big). I recommend doing most of this by hand, without the support of automation just yet. Running through the steps manually helps find gaps in the process or errors in the targeting. 

Once you’ve validated that your messaging and targeting are effective, you can start adding automation and eventually hiring a team to replicate your process. I had a deeper dive prepared but this email was already running pretty long so I cut it, let me know if you’d like to hear more. 

Show Your Work
Your ongoing learning process can (and should) be a natural source of content. Summarize the insights from your customer-development calls in a blog post or short video. Interview industry leaders and turn these chats into podcasts or articles, then break that content into smaller pieces for social media. By consistently sharing what you’re learning, you’ll begin leaving valuable clues for potential customers who are also grappling with the same challenges and trying to find a solution. Think of this as increasing your surface area of luck.

Get Advice
Reach out to fellow entrepreneurs in similar or adjacent spaces and ask them to poke holes in your pitch, GTM plans, or strategy. Every founder received some help getting started so they’re likely happy to pay it forward. One bonus, their networks will be different than yours so don’t be afraid to ask for intros to anyone you can interview / add to your customer development funnel. 

Get Feedback
If you have fewer than 10 customers, make it a weekly habit to check in with them. Once you’ve grown beyond that number, aim for monthly calls, collecting feedback on what’s working well and what isn’t. Ask for referrals if they’re happy; if not, figure out how to improve.

Work Your Customer Development Funnel
Be proactive about following up with people you’ve interviewed in the past. People who were too busy a few months ago might be prepared to revisit the conversation now. If they’re not a fit, ask if they know anyone else who might be. Often, you’ll be just one introduction away from your next big insight or perfect customer.

Plan!
Every Friday I set aside time to plan my top one to three priorities for the coming week. I recap my progress from the past week and share with the team. This helps the team feel the progress and keeps me accountable. There’s nothing like publicly sharing your progress to improve your do / say ratio. 

If you’re under $1M ARR and aiming for a funding round in less than a year, an SDR team is unlikely to give you the quick return you need. Double down on founder-led sales development and leverage small, consistent actions to build momentum. Those small steps compound, often leading to critical insights and relationships that shape your entire go-to-market strategy. In short, prove it yourself before you scale it.

Until next time,

Collin

PS1 - the results from last week’s poll are in and A won handily. Though, I admit that I absolutely butchered the structure of the email. Thank you to everyone who let me know they clicked A by mistake. While I think A is the cleanest, and was my favourite going into the survey, there’s something about C that really stands out. I haven’t decided yet but C is really growing on me. The design team is working on a few variations and I’ll share them when I get them.