Navigating Startup Sales Challenges

If you’ve ever found yourself torn between chasing a long-term product vision and urgently responding to customer demands—or wondered how to strike the right balance between innovation and pragmatism—this episode is for you.

In this episode of Supra Insider, Marc and Ben sit down with Troy Sultan and Austin Cooley, co-founders of Guide, to explore how they transformed their entire product philosophy from idealistic "big bets" into rapid, incremental solutions based on direct customer feedback. Over eight years as co-founders, Troy and Austin have navigated the common pitfalls of visionary product building, learning to validate product ideas faster, communicate clearly with customers, and shift their strategy to achieve real, measurable results.

Whether you're a founder trying to align your product roadmap with sales insights, a product leader collaborating closely with visionary executives, or simply want to sharpen your ability to translate customer feedback into actionable decisions, you’ll walk away from this conversation with practical insights you can use immediately to build products that customers genuinely love.

All episodes of the podcast are also available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.

New to the pod? Subscribe below to get the next episode in your inbox 👇

To support the podcast, please check out the links below:

* Supra has teamed up with Maven to bring you something special – courses that our own community members have personally curated. And because you're part of the Supra family, you get $100 off any of these handpicked selections with code SUPRAxMAVEN.

* Preparing for a PM interview with tech companies like Meta and Google? Check out Ben's course for Product Sense and Analytical Thinking PM interviews (selected by Lenny Rachitsky as a Top Course in Product on Maven 🔥) and his AI Copilot for interview practice. Supra Insider listeners get 10% off the course with promo code “suprainsider”. Enrollment is now open for the next cohort starting June 17th.

In this episode, we covered the following topics:

* (00:00) Austin and Troy’s journey shifting from building bloated, overly idealistic products to pragmatic solutions that customers love.

* (04:00) How Troy navigated stepping back from product leadership, trusting Austin to fully own the product vision.

* (16:00) The pitfalls of being overly attached to frameworks like Jobs-to-be-Done—and why rapidly shipping pragmatic improvements can be more effective.

* (25:00) A real-world example of aggressively scoping down features to deliver immediate customer value and accelerate learning.

* (34:00) The power of founder-led sales for validating ideas and prioritizing the roadmap based on real customer pull, rather than assumptions.

* (45:00) How Guide leverages Slack to create tight feedback loops, strengthen customer relationships, and boost retention through unmatched responsiveness.

* (1:12:00) Why consistent, incremental wins ultimately provide more momentum and clarity than chasing long-term idealistic visions.

* And more!

If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:

Links:

* Troy Sultan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troysultan/

* Austin Cooley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adcooley/

* Guide: https://www.guide.co/

* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/

* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/

To support the podcast, please check out the links below:

* Supra has teamed up with Maven to bring you something special – courses that our own community members have personally curated. And because you're part of the Supra family, you get $100 off any of these handpicked selections with code SUPRAxMAVEN.

* Preparing for a PM interview with tech companies like Meta and Google? Check out Ben's course for Product Sense and Analytical Thinking PM interviews (selected by Lenny Rachitsky as a Top Course in Product on Maven 🔥) and his AI Copilot for interview practice. Supra Insider listeners get 10% off the course with promo code “suprainsider”. Enrollment is now open for the next cohort starting June 17th.

*

* If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with a friend or colleague 👇

Also, if you’re a new subscriber, we encourage you to check out some of the recent episodes you might have missed:

And here are some less recent favorites:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit suprainsider.substack.com