Sales Talk for CEOs Ep182 Hard Lessons in Early Sales: How Collin Stewart Found Real Product-Market Fit
Oct 28, 2025
49:05
From hockey stick growth to flat on your face, it hurts and Collin Stewart can tell you firsthand. He had one customer before he left his full-time job, the problem was he still had one customer 18 months later. In his first endeavor this entrepreneur built what he thought everyone needed and kept showing them and expecting them to say how great it was, but they didn’t. “I was building my idea. I wasn’t building what the customer’s wanted.”
The lesson, it’s all about the customer, what they need and want.
Rapid-Fire Mentions
- Book: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumell
- Podcast: Acquired FM
- Advice to CEOs: Lead with relationships and real value. Outbound still works, but only if your product-market fit is strong. If you’re early-stage, skip the pitch and focus on helping first.
Connect With
- Collin Stewart: LinkedIn | Website
- Collin’s book: The Terrifying Art of Finding a Customer
- Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website