The Design Partner Playbook for AI Products | Why Skeptics Make the Best Early Users | Why You Should Fire Your First Customers | How Charging Too Early Kills Startups | Alexa Grabell, Co-founder & CEO of Pocus
In this discussion, Alexa Grabell, co-founder and CEO of Pocus, shares her journey of building a successful revenue acceleration platform, emphasizing the crucial role of design partners. She reveals how embracing skeptics over enthusiasts can lead to better product validation. Alexa explains the importance of structured customer discovery and why charging too early can hinder startup growth. Learn how firing the wrong-fit customers can actually enhance retention and why curiosity is key in sales – a game-changer for startups!
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Brute Force Early Customer Discovery
Grind it out relentlessly to find early customers and feedback.
Use brute force messaging and referrals instead of waiting for perfect connections.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Hypothesis-Driven Discovery Calls
Structure discovery calls around testing specific hypotheses in 1–3 week sprints.
Lead with curiosity without guiding the witness to get genuine insights.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Probe Beyond Failed Hypotheses
When hypotheses fail, probe to discover why and uncover other valid priorities.
Understand whether a problem is irrelevant or just a temporary focus shift.
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From cold LinkedIn DMs to nailing customer discovery and design partnerships to eventually raising $23M from Tier 1 venture firms.
Learn why most startups do customer discovery so poorly, why they fail at design partnerships and how Pocus CEO Alexa Grabell cracked the code by embracing skeptics over enthusiasts. Learn the counterintuitive approach that led to building a category-defining product in the crowded sales tech space.
Alexa Grabell is co-founder and CEO of Pocus, a revenue acceleration platform that helps go-to-market teams at companies like Asana, Canva, and Amiiro save 10+ hours weekly by turning data into pipeline. She's raised over $23M from First Round Capital, Coatue, Pear, and angels including Scott Belsky and Lenny Rachitsky.
In Today's Episode We Discuss: 01:46 - How to structure discovery calls to validate hypotheses in 2-3 week sprints 03:12 - The art of sending hundreds of LinkedIn messages to get 10 meetings per week 06:27 - Why leading with curiosity beats leading the witness in customer interviews 08:33 - How pretending to be a competitor's sales rep validates product ideas 10:52 - Converting skeptical prospects into your best design partners 13:49 - The #1 mistake that kills the transition from design partner to paying customer 15:09 - Why charging $6K when you should charge $30K destroys early retention 18:44 - How a founder learns enterprise sales by failing at every step 22:26 - Why early churn from wrong-fit customers is a feature, not a bug 24:14 - Using design partnerships again after raising Series A for AI products 28:05 - The power of building with skeptics who think AI can't solve their problems 33:12 - How to navigate pricing conversations when you don't know your price 35:02 - Why design partnerships require 70% of founder time to succeed 37:27 - Building a 4,000-person Slack community through valuable AMAs 41:20 - The contrarian approach to hiring marketing as your first GTM hire 42:20 - Why the best startup advice is to ignore all startup advice
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