First Customers: 8 Months of Failed Cold Emails Before $10M ARR

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

💌 Get weekly 5-minute SaaS insights: https://saasclub.io/email

SaaS Club Programs

• Join the SaaS Club founder community: https://saasclub.co/plus
• Build your $10K MRR SaaS: https://saasclub.io/launch
• Scale from 6-figures to $1M ARR Faster: https://saasclub.io/mastermind
• Get 1:1 async coaching from Omer: https://saasclub.io/accelerate

Resources

• Full show notes: https://saasclub.io/420
• Subscribe to the podcast: https://saasclub.io/subscribe