Founder-Led Sales: Launching Before You Are Ready

Why We Scheduled Demos Before Our Product Was Ready (And Why You Should, Too)

Startups love chasing perfection. We want every feature to work flawlessly. Every bug squashed. Every onboarding work perfectly before we can show it to the world.

But this week, we did the opposite. We booked 6 demo calls for our product, even though we have a few major bugs.

Why? Because we needed to create internal urgency. ⏲️

The Trap of Waiting for “Ready”

It’s tempting to keep building in private, tweaking and testing until everything feels just right. But “ready” is actually a moving target. If we waited for perfection, we would let our competitors fly past us because they are constantly learning, talking to customers, and iterating.

Getting demos is both exciting and stressful! On one hand, having these calls on the calendar is pushing us to work faster and focus on what really matters. On the other hand, I worry about showing something that isn’t 100% ready. But I also know that getting real feedback from customers early is the only way we will know if we’re on the right track.

Creating Urgency (For Ourselves)

Scheduling those demos before we are ready. We forced* ourselves to be ready.

Those bugs aren't just tickets, they are real conversations on sales blockers. How important are these bugs. The artificial deadline gave us clarity and purpose.

It’s the difference between “we should fix this soon” and “we have to fix this by Tuesday, because someone will use it."


Momentum > Perfection

User feedback "eats" hypotheticals for breakfast. 🥣 Momentum over perfection. We had to launch and stress test in the wild.

In startups, momentum is everything. Booking those calls forced us to move, to prioritize, and to get comfortable with imperfection. If something breaks, we’ll reschedule and learn. But if we waited for perfect, we might never launch at all.

If you’re building something new, don’t wait for perfect. Create urgency even if it's artificial. Get your product in front of people, even if it’s not ready. The feedback, focus, and momentum you gain will be worth more than any extra week of polishing behind closed doors.

Read more about my startup journey: https://growthwithgary.com/archive?tags=Startup

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