Named “New-Web Entrepreneur” by the European Commission “Future Internet” Initiative, accepted for the Erasmus for Entrepreneurs, the infamous Stanford Technology Entrepreneurship program and multiple YC applications later our startup was still not a unicorn 🦄

But, what was still the case: every time I looked up from the screen and tilted my head to the side to organize my thoughts, squeezing my eyes shut to concentrate, my gaze inevitably fell on the bookshelf above my desk. And there it was: The Startup Owner Manual.

In the meantime, a few more books had been added. But that didn't change the one inconvenient truth: we have no venture capital money—we need sales, we need someone to use our product, find value in it and therefore pay us. Because Sales comes from providing value to your customers, not growth hacks, not fancy marketing, not the best product in the world, not tradeshow, conferences or award shows, not studying books, YouTube videos, courses and reading articles.

If you don’t make what people want and give them opportunity to change their lives with your product, then you have no business yet.

And then you have to find other people, and more of those people and you find yourself not knowing why exactly is that they bought? What actually is the value we provide for them? How exactly do we repeat that sale?

Every startup phase is about finding that out. A startup is a temporary organization on the mission to find a repeatable and scalable business model. That is true for every innovation. If you don’t have a business model, if you don’t have someone who can use your product it is just art. Whether that is your patent, or your software or your innovative marketing. If you don’t want to serve anybody, if your customers don’t understand you, if your audience comes last, then you are an artist. Which is perfectly fine. But don’t let anybody tell you that there is no sales necessary if you want to have a non-for-profit or a for-profit organization to make an impact and leave this world a better place.
Sales is the process of proving repeatable value over and over again, to either the same person, a similar audience or to new people who have a similar challenge, a comparable job-to-be-done.So what is the Startup Owners Manual about and how does it apply to your growth?

It is about finding the people who want your product and making the product people want by leaving the building and talking to them. Learning from them. Gathering the real world data and then making your own opinionated decisions. Take these assumptions of yours, put them to the test, iterate and growth will be inevitable.

This is how you grow data-driven;
this is how you grow sustainable;
this is how you grow customer-centric.
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The hardest part now is finding the people you want to serve.

I help people like you who want to make the world a better place to lay a customer-centric foundation so you can have a bigger impact. Let’s work together.