- The one thing
- Get a few people with the problem to commit before you build more: a pre-payment, a signed letter, or their time.
- Where it stalls
- Building before anyone has paid, and launching everywhere at once.
- Skip for now
- Ads, search tools, hired sellers, bought data.
- The one thing
- Close your first customers yourself, and find the one channel that brought them.
- Where it stalls
- Building for people who don't pay, and charging too little to matter.
- Skip for now
- Paid ads, a sales hire, lead data, agencies.
- The one thing
- Prove that customers stay, and get one channel bringing in most of the new ones.
- Where it stalls
- Three channels at once, and ads that never pay back.
- Skip for now
- Executive hires, a sales team, bigger ad budgets, bought data.
- The one thing
- Build a way to sell that works without you: your first reps once you've proven the pitch, and a second channel.
- Where it stalls
- Everything still runs through the founder.
- Skip for now
- A sales VP before your reps hit quota, brand campaigns, certifications nobody asked for.
- The one thing
- Scale what pays back. Track payback channel by channel, grow revenue from the customers you have, and add a third channel.
- Where it stalls
- Each new customer costs more than the last, and existing ones spend less over time.
- Skip for now
- Brand spend before a channel's payback is proven, and hiring ahead of quota.
- The one thing
- Make expansion the engine: a second product or segment, new countries, and a partner ecosystem.
- Where it stalls
- Too much revenue from a few big customers, and churn hidden by annual contracts.
- Skip for now
- Anything not tied to payback or keeping customers.
Advice with sources, never a rule. Runner's consent, suppression and approval checks still decide.