Thousands of cold emails. Zero replies. Eight months of rejection. Palash Soni and his co-founders couldn't land their first customers no matter what they tried. In this episode, founders will learn how they discovered UI—not features—was killing their sales, rebuilt everything in 5 weeks, and landed Drift as the deal that changed everything.
Palash shares the brutal reality of finding first customers in enterprise SaaS: why early-stage startups wouldn't commit even though they said they loved the product, how giving equity to mid-level advisors unlocked critical intros, and the persistence it took to email Drift's founder three times before getting a response.
Today, Goldcast has grown beyond $10 million ARR serving 400 customers including Salesforce, Zuora, and Lattice—proof that the struggle to find first customers can lead to enterprise success.
🔑 Key Lessons
- 🎯 Split-test outreach to find your first customers: Palash sent 200 emails split between two segments—one responded, one didn't. This revealed the real ICP before building.
- 📉 Listen when prospects reject you: For 8 months, people mentioned the UI looked bad. Palash dismissed it until zero traction forced a 5-week rebuild.
- 🚀 Persistence unlocks breakthrough deals: Palash emailed Drift's founder three times before getting a response. That single customer unlocked inbound leads.
- 💰 Willingness to pay reveals your real ICP: Startups wouldn't commit; larger companies signed annual contracts despite a half-built product. Follow the money.
- 🏢 Use advisors strategically for first customer intros: They gave equity to mid-level directors who could open doors—not executives too busy to help.
- 🤝 Invest in support as a growth channel: Word-of-mouth research revealed "great support" drove referrals, so they doubled the team to respond in 30 seconds.
Chapters
- Introduction and favorite quote
- What Goldcast does and who it's for
- Revenue, team size, and funding ($10M+ ARR)
- Origin story at Harvard Business School
- Validating the idea with cold emails
- Split-testing outreach to find first customers
- The 8-month struggle to land first customers
- Why early-stage startups wouldn't commit
- The UI problem nobody wanted to hear
- Rebuilding the entire UI in 5 weeks
- Landing Drift as the breakthrough first customer
- How one customer unlocked inbound leads
- Finding the right ICP through willingness to pay
- Using advisors to unlock intros
- Growing from first customers to $1M ARR
- Running events about events as a growth channel
- The $5M ARR churn problem that forced a pivot
- Pivoting from events to video content platform
- Investing in support as word-of-mouth fuel
- Lightning round questions
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