Oneleet’s Post

Sales for early-stage founders - Pt I Hey there! I'm writing this series for early-stage founders who find sales difficult, because I used to be one of them. Before starting Oneleet, I believed sales required being a slick extrovert with a polished bag of tricks, ready to counter any objection with a clever retort. As if there was a Jedi mind trick that could magically convince people they needed your product, doing a complete 180 from their initial stance. But the reality is different. The truth is this: If you find something you truly care about, and it benefits others, sales is simply talking passionately about why you love what you're building and doing. Often, it's a candid back-and-forth where the frustrations you express resonate so strongly that you'll be interrupted with something like, "YES! That's exactly how I feel! This thing X sucks, and I never understood why nobody was doing anything about it!" Now, I'm no sales guru with vast experience selling across industries and company sizes. Cold calling terrifies me. Cold emailing leaves me staring at a blank canvas for an hour. All the sales I do is through inbound after telling the world what we do and why we do it. I mostly just know how to sell what we built at Oneleet, and I know how to sell it well. Of course, this wouldn't be possible if the product was terrible. I think the first 50% required to do well is to have something people want. The rest is just being passionate about it. And it's working. In just 10 months, we went from $100k to $1.6M in ARR, with a close rate over 60% and $0 spent on sales and marketing. Word of mouth is our primary driver, and we frequently get inbound interest from companies that heard it's great to work with us. People have even told me, "I didn't expect this call to be this much fun!" and "This is genuinely one of the best sales calls I've ever been in." Over the next few weeks, I'll share some of the non-obvious lessons I've learned these past two years selling for Oneleet. The stuff nobody ever told me about, and no book mentioned. Here's a sneak peek of what's to come: - Being genuinely helpful, regardless of whether they buy from you - Making a real connection by sharing founder experiences and showing interest - Why being authentic, even if imperfect, is crucial in sales - Being a teacher and guide, making it easy for prospects to understand the landscape - Sharing your story and explaining why the problem matters to you - Ditching the script for more engaging conversations and insights - Using sales calls as product discovery interviews to learn what your users care about - Being comfortable telling clients it's not a good fit to build trust So stay tuned, and get ready for some raw, unfiltered insights from the front lines of startup sales. It might not always be pretty, but it'll be real.