From choosing a startup idea to the transition of founder sales to team-led sales
With WorkOS, you get ready to sell to enterprise customers. It makes the biggest impact when a startup is post-PMF and generally starting to scale. If you're going through this breakout phase, try it.
The earliest mistake in GTM, especially for engineer founders, is the belief that you must build it to sell it. The first five sales of Graphite were all slides, and not one person asked to click through the product. Also, the contract will take months to close anyway; you can build during that time. It also allows you to discover what is essential for customers—this feature is on the roadmap; if you pay extra, we can move it up vs build something you don't know if customers want.
As a founder, you will spend more time with your customers than your friends. Pick the startup idea that has the customers you like to hang out with the most. Pick an idea that is personal to you and that you are interested in vs what the latest VC or analyst report says you should build. This personal interest will help you get your first users and fuel the sheer force of will - to send emails, show up at events, and hustle the hell out of it.
Look at what communities you're part of. Graphite built a tool similar to Facebook's internal tools, and they started talking with alumni communities first. Leverage your community to get the first users.
