🎉 How to Delight Your First Customers...

by Renier Kriel from The Open Letter and Stream

“Do things that don’t scale” has become part of startup folklore.

Written 11 years ago by YC founder Paul Graham, many have drawn inspiration from his often counterintuitive advice on, among other things recruiting your first customers, embracing fragility, creating insane customer experiences, containing your fire and delighting users.

The TLDR (although you really should read it) – it feels wrong to do time-consuming things that you won’t be able to do once your company is economically viable, but by skipping those things you miss out on vital steps and learnings.

So for today’s Builder’s Corner, we are focussing specifically on how to delight your first customers. WARNING: These things don’t scale…

1. Solve their problems (and some more) as if they are your only customer, ever

We all know startups exist to solve customer problems and when you are building SaaS products, it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to solve “for the whole market” you’re chasing. The problem with that thinking is that, early on, the whole market aint buying.

Let your customers feel like buying from you was the best decision they ever made and then, once they buy, exceed all their expectations. Why?

1. Early adopters are talkers. They like to be in the know and tell other people about the smart stuff they find. When you delight them, others will hear about it.
2. You will uncover nuances about their problems that are very hard to uncover when you service them at a distance. Get in the mud with them and you will learn a tonne. What’s more, your competition is likely not going to do it.
3. When you add more value than they could reasonably expect, it becomes easier to ask for a referral or get them to help you get another customer.

2. Champion their business

When they win, you win! Can you add value beyond what your product is doing for them? This could be in the form of an introduction, or insights on an observation.

The key here is that, if they really feel like you are on their side, chances are you will get access to information, insights and relationships you otherwise would not.

Be proud of working with them and making a positive impact.

3. Add that personal touch

Like Paul Graham says, Tim Cook can’t send a handwritten letter with every Macbook sold, but you can. Use your smaller, nimble approach as a weapon to personalise your engagement.

What does this look like?

• Handwritten cards are a good one, but many have caught on to this.
• Maybe a personalised welcome kit, including a note with a small gift or product sample.
• Anniversary and birthday surprises could work well if you can find the data.
• Most underrated of all? Call them regularly to ask how you can help them win, and then go and do that.