Story

Dear founders,

I'm trying to understand common startup wisdom and it doesn't make sense to me.

For example, if you give me the source code of Dropbox, I don't think I'll cross the 100K ARR in the first year. Maybe, even 1K goal would be a stretch.

What would you do to get an abstract Dropbox to 1M ARR? Start with cold emails? Define ICP and spam them through Linkedin Sales Navigator, aka B2B sales playbook?

I find common advice on validation super generic, which means it doesn't work as it lacks specifics and nuance. For example, competition is good because it proves demand, but "scrappy MVP" doesn't sell in competitive markets.

I'm arriving at the point that the only way to succeed is to get your product embedded into some kind of value delivery pipeline through offline sales: meetups, trade shows, etc. Go to a place where your customers hang out offline.

Did you validate your idea before shipping the product? Did you know in advance that it'll succeed? Did you have to do cold emails to find first customers? Did you feel you had to push your product at first?