It’s been 118 days since we started building our startup, but progress has been slow.
Wayyyy slower than we’d like.
Given that we’re a bootstrapped startup, we don’t have much room for slow growth.
We need things to work, fast.
Cold Calling — A Failed Experiment…
Last week, I decided to start cold calling to get a faster feedback loop, because when I don’t get responses from emails and LinkedIn messages, I don’t get any feedback.
However, it’s been a while since I did cold calls, and I’m BAD at it.
I’m overthinking things and doing too little dials.
I thought I’ll get better at it faster, but it’s not a skill I can develop overnight.
Then Justin called me out — “I don’t think you should continue doing this… it’s not your strength”
I thought about it, and what he said is true.
Why am I starting a new acquisition channel when I haven’t even mastered our existing one?
Furthermore, I’ve got better results from other channels. I should be doubling down on those instead of starting a new one.
After reflecting on it, I believe this is the right way to go.
I shouldn’t obsess over what’s the “right channel” to focus on, but more so what’s the “right channel FOR ME”.
At this point in time when we need things to work FAST, I can’t afford to waste time learning and mastering a new channel.
I need to leverage what I already know to get things off the ground before I try something new.
Back to Basics: The “Allbound” Methodology
That’s why we’re getting back to basics and adopting the “allbound” methodology:
* LinkedIn content to drive awareness and eyeballs — “inbound”
* Warm “outbound” to those who engage with our content to spark conversations and book meetings
Instead of building a new skillset around cold calling, I should focus on:
* Improving quantity + quality of my LinkedIn content
* Improving quantity + quality of my LinkedIn DMs
Anything else is a distraction.
LinkedIn will be the main channel I focus on before moving on to any other channel.
Writing Valuable Content for Our Audience
When I consider my own buying behaviour, I realised socials are the new platform for discovery. The tools that I often end up buying — I often found them or heard of them first from LinkedIn.
If I reflect on why our progress have been slow, I realised we haven’t talked much about how we’re different, our story or inspiration for starting our startup, and what we stand for as a company.
It basically means one thing — at this point, we’re just blending into the crowd. We’re not standing out.
In a world where product features are no longer a differentiation or viable moat, distribution is key, and to have meaningful distribution, you need a strong brand and community supporting you.
That’s why I’m going to put more attention into creating more valuable content and more importantly, sharing stories of how we’re helping our customers in a differentiated way from our competitors.
Time to stay focused and execute on this new strategy!
