Prospecting

Finding and contacting people who match your ICP.

Example

Building a list of 100 matching firms and writing to each one specifically.

Important

Personalised outbound at small volume beats mass email at every early stage — and it teaches you your customer, which mass email does not.

Related terms

  • Lead — Someone who might become a customer but has not yet been qualified.
  • ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) — A precise description of the customer who gets the most value from your product and is easiest to reach, sell and keep.
  • Founder-led sales — The founder personally selling to the first customers, before any sales hire.

Lessons that explain it

  • Getting your first ten customers — Not from a channel. From you, personally, one at a time — and that is the correct way to do it. (12 min)
  • Founder-led sales for people who hate selling — Selling early is not persuasion. It is finding out whether this person has the problem badly enough to pay — and that is a question, not a pitch. (12 min)

All 176 terms in the Founder glossary