In this eye-opening conversation, Collin Stewart, co-founder of Predictable Revenue, podcast host, and sales expert, reveals the fundamental mistake most founders make when launching their business: building something without first validating if customers actually want it.
Drawing from his own costly 18-month journey of building a CRM that nobody wanted to buy, Collin shares the powerful lessons he learned about customer discovery, product-market fit, and how founders can avoid making the same expensive mistakes. He reveals why over-investing in sales and marketing too early is a deadly trap and how conducting proper customer development interviews can be the difference between a business that flames out and one that generates $1M in revenue within three months of launch.
Whether you’re a solopreneur or a scaling startup, you’ll learn Collin’s proven framework for creating predictable revenue by establishing consistent top-of-funnel lead generation and implementing rock-solid sales processes. Plus, discover why founders must “prove it before they scale it” and the strategic approach to intelligently growing your team only after you’ve validated your product and process.
Episode Highlights
- How Collin’s first venture failed because he asked customers if they liked his idea instead of first understanding their problems
- The revelation that changed everything: conduct proper customer development interviews before building anything
- Why most companies die from premature scaling and over-investing in revenue teams too early
- Two essential components of predictable revenue: consistent top-of-funnel leads and consistent sales process
- Why founders must prove their sales process works before hiring others to replicate it
- The strategic advantage of starting with fractional employees and virtual assistants
- A step-by-step approach to finding your first customers through referrals and strategic interviews
- Why 50-100 customer development interviews is the sweet spot to validate product-market fit
- The power of asking “Who else should I talk to?” at the end of every customer conversation
Read the Comments +