5 paying customers!

I am pretty ecstatic. We have our first 5 paying customers!

It's a great feeling.

How did we do it?

Pitching the Problem We Are Trying To Solve:

We spent the first 3 months exploring ideas. Initially, we started with an automated product feedback tool, trying to uncover the “hair-on-fire” problems in that market. Eventually, we pivoted to building a customer success platform. While we validated there was real pain (after speaking with 15+ CS directors, 10+ CEOs, and 5+ sales leaders), we realized the ICP didn’t have enough influence to buy, and our solution didn’t fit seamlessly into their existing workflows.

Our early sales momentum needed: Finding hair on fire problem + Budget authority.

Discovery:

Across 30+ interviews, one thing stood out: everyone was drowning in emails. Whether it was CS teams doing reactive firefighting, sales reps staying on top of prospects, or founders trying to keep communication professional with partners, vendors, and customers—email was overwhelming. And they were juggling all this while managing family responsibilities.

Pitching:

The problem of needing help with their inbox really resonated with our first network connections.

We pitched to tech founders and sales executives we already knew—and closed 5 out of 10 discovery calls.

Part of this success comes from how universal the problem is: email drains time and energy for nearly everyone. But I also want to acknowledge that some of our early customers just wanted to be supportive—something we don’t take for granted.

Whats Next:

At this stage, we’re continuing to do 1:1 sales while validating and refining our roadmap based on feedback about people’s email workflows.

Stepping back and reflecting like this helps remind me that the journey itself is the reward.

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I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.