+What you’re dealing with right now
You have a product and early customers, but no repeatable way to find the next ones.
- You have a product and a hypothesis about the buyer — but no structured way to test the hypothesis
- Discovery conversations feel different every time — because there is no framework, only instinct
- You are closing customers through warm network introductions and cannot replicate it at scale
- The investor narrative for the seed round needs commercial proof — not just product proof
- You know you should be selling more deliberately but are not sure what deliberately looks like in practice
+Why this approach works
Selling deliberately at pre-seed is not premature — it is how you find product-market fit.
Discovery is researchTen structured customer conversations reveal more about your ICP than 12 months of product iteration.
Run in parallelCommercial infrastructure and product discovery happen together, not in sequence.
Evidence for the raiseYour seed narrative gets commercial proof, not just product proof.
+What to get right before Series A
Three things worth getting right before the raise, each covered in The Operator.
- Write down who buys and why, using your first ten customers
- Keep notes from every discovery call so the pattern becomes visible
- Know which deals closed without the founder in the room
When you’ve raised your Series A, the GTM Diagnostic is where we start.