A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:38:32 · Colin Zima, Pablo Srugo
[00:38:32] S0: Yeah, the big one is, we sort of mentioned that we were staying in a space that we knew well and we had big networks. So I probably when I started Omni had, I don't know, seven or eighty thousand connections on LinkedIn maybe six thousand or something like that. And a lot of these were people that had purchased BI from Looker at some point in the past that I talked to in person. A lot of them I just pinged and said like, hey, can you take a look at our product, give me some feedback and if you build up a social network over time and you're trusted in the space. People will respond to that. And they don't necessarily need to be buying product today. Again, when we talk about SaaS I'm trying to sell you a product over ten years not over a year. And so, getting to show them the product and then show them progress over time can be really valuable. And so, you probably have a bigger social network than you think of former employees and customers. I pinged I think almost every single person that used to work at Looker. We had a thousand employees when we got acquired. I probably sent a LinkedIn message to nine hundred of them and it's not because we're trying to exploit them. It's because I think that I can give them a great experience. I do love seeing a lot of them and so you can kind of mix being social and getting feedback on your product. [00:39:36] S2: This may be a dumb question, but somebody who works at Looker is not potentially a customer. [00:39:41] S0: Former Lookers. A lot of them left and went other places.
00:39:41 · Colin Zima, Pablo Srugo
[00:39:41] S0: Former Lookers. A lot of them left and went other places. [00:39:45] S2: And they're doing data these other places or what's the? [00:39:48] S0: A lot of them, yeah, or they have a data team at those other places. And you say like, hey, can you connect me to the data team and also take a look at the product? [00:39:56] S2: Because a lot of people that work at Looker might be marketing or sales or engineering. They're not necessarily like, OK.
00:40:00 · Colin Zima
[00:40:00] S0: Yeah, but they hopefully like us and we had a large group of Looker continued. So there was some, there was some love and they want their business to run better too. And the thing that people forget about selling is that good selling is just connecting someone with a problem to someone that can solve their problem. And if we can just be trusted to help solve a problem for you like, someone will take thirty minutes out of their day to see if their problem can get solved. If I'm just asking for money that's not a helpful situation. If I'm saying like I bet that I can either reduce your cost or make you guys smarter and give you a better product. And make it really easy for you, that's a pretty easy message. People like free money and they like having their job done for them. So we just found a lot of people were willing to connect us with other people in their org. And then the other thing I would say is when founders of startups, especially ones that know their space well. Ping other people, very often your ICP customer early does want to talk to you and the reason is because people like discovering new products and they like seeing new things and they like being part of the build out process. Not everyone but if you ping a hundred people maybe thirty of them are curious about what you're building and want to see it. And you got to be careful about wasting your time like plenty of people will kick tires and things like that. But if you know what your customer looks like and you can get other people to engage that look like your customer, then you've now created this match. So like the qualification is on you to figure out who a good person to talk to is. Because again, there'll be lots of time wasters. But a lot of people want to discover the next product. And they want to see it early and they want to touch and feel it.
00:41:40 · Pablo Srugo, Colin Zima
[00:41:40] S2: I think this makes total sense. Let's get into the specifics. How do you set this up? Are you every day you're doing ten outreach. Every week you're doing a hundred. You have quotas. How do you? Because LinkedIn is not, it's like got so much data, but it's not really set up to help you run a workflow. And, you know what I mean? It's just not that clean. [00:41:55] S0: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we just tried to ideate on things. So, like, we literally ran a campaign where I sat down with a BDR and we looked through every single person that used to work at Looker. We decided whether we thought that they would, find value in our product and we sent them a note. [00:42:10] S2: Manually. Boom, boom, boom. [00:42:11] S0: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't take that long, like, two hours. You can get through two hundred people. I also printed out every single LinkedIn connection I had and was like, this person could be interesting, this person could be interesting, this person could be interesting. No, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes and sometimes it's your real friends and you hadn't even thought about it. And you send them a message and you're like, hey, will you look at this thing with me? [00:42:32] S2: And that's the other question, the message is what? Like, hey, I built this. Do you want it? What's the craft in that message?
00:42:32 · Pablo Srugo, Colin Zima
[00:42:32] S2: And that's the other question, the message is what? Like, hey, I built this. Do you want it? What's the craft in that message? [00:42:38] S0: We tested every message you could possibly imagine. Some of them were about the product. Some of them were like, I'm a founder and I'm building something new. Would you like to look? That's what I'd say. You aren't going to know what messaging works. You need to play around. [00:42:55] S2: What worked for you? Did something work better for you or would you find it was all kind of similar? [00:42:58] S0: Shorter is better, more direct is better, less flowery language is better. So we just found honesty and simplicity to be the easiest approach. So that's where you need to be a little bit careful. If you ask for feedback, you will get closer to a tire kicker than anything else. Which can be good depending on the stage that you're at. But, the ask could be clear. If I think I built you something good, then like, hey, I think this would work for you guys. I would love your thoughts if that's true. People are afraid to say what they actually mean and you can just go on, and if you can describe your product crisply. And it solves the problem for that person, you can say like, hey, I bet you have this problem. We solved that problem. Would you like to see? The worst is that someone's not going to respond. Again, if you're doing this inside a social network, very often people will respond and you get an opportunity to say like, hey, did what I say come true? How was that?
00:42:58 · Colin Zima, Pablo Srugo
[00:42:58] S0: Shorter is better, more direct is better, less flowery language is better. So we just found honesty and simplicity to be the easiest approach. So that's where you need to be a little bit careful. If you ask for feedback, you will get closer to a tire kicker than anything else. Which can be good depending on the stage that you're at. But, the ask could be clear. If I think I built you something good, then like, hey, I think this would work for you guys. I would love your thoughts if that's true. People are afraid to say what they actually mean and you can just go on, and if you can describe your product crisply. And it solves the problem for that person, you can say like, hey, I bet you have this problem. We solved that problem. Would you like to see? The worst is that someone's not going to respond. Again, if you're doing this inside a social network, very often people will respond and you get an opportunity to say like, hey, did what I say come true? How was that? [00:43:50] S2: Walk me through the expectations, because I think this is another big one. If you were, and I don't. I know they have the numbers in front of you, but just high level. You sent a hundred of these. How many should you expect to respond? How many meetings should you expect booked and whatever?