Set your goals

The goal of selling in the early days is not revenue. It's validating your approach and moving towards PMF so you eventually have something worth scaling.

Start by breaking down what you're trying to validate into these three distinct categories:

Each type of validation requires different goals and different questions. Problem validation is about frequency and depth—how many people are experiencing this pain, and how severe is it? Solution validation is about resonance—when you show people what you're building, do they light up or do they politely nod? Business model validation is about contracts signed and repeatability—are people willing to pay, and can you do it again?

Remember: PMF is your North Star

PMF is your number one target. Without it, you shouldn't be trying to scale the business. You'll end up spending money on getting people to try your product, only for them to walk away.

Lenny’s Newsletter has rounded up some of the best advice on PMF and signs that you’re moving towards achieving it.

Revenue is important, but it's a lagging indicator. It's a measure of whether you're providing a solution people will pay for. Usage and retention tell you whether you're actually solving the problem. These are the signals you need to be tracking, not just top-line revenue numbers.

Think of it this way: You're not building a house yet; you're still figuring out if the foundation is solid. You need to know whether the ground can support what you want to build before you start stacking floors on it.

Be brutally honest about volume

The uncomfortable reality is that talking to three customers a week won't cut it. You need volume to build pattern recognition.

Tofu’s Elaine Zelby had 400+ conversations in her first six months. "I am, if nothing else, a total hustler," she says. "After you've had 400 conversations and also tried to do 400 concurrent sales processes, you'll learn pretty quickly what looks like a good fit and what doesn't."

What goals should you actually set?

At the start, set goals around validation velocity:

Problem validation

• Number of discovery calls per week (you’ll need more in the early days, less as you have a theory or solution)
• Depth of pain identified (use a scoring system)
• Frequency of the problem (how often it occurs for them)

Solution validation

• Percentage of people who ask for early access after seeing the solution
• Willingness to spend more time with you (conversion from first to second call)
• Specific feature requests that align with your vision

Business model validation

• Number of design partners or early access customers
• Conversion rate to paid (even if discounted)
• Repeatability signals (you can explain why they bought your product in a way that applies to others)

At Clarify, we closely track conversion from discovery to solution calls. We aim for about 60%—meaning if someone says on a first call that they have a huge pain, but then won't take a second call to see the solution, it wasn't actually a real pain point.

You'll know you're ready to shift from validation goals to revenue goals when you can confidently answer: Who has this problem? Why does my solution work for them? And can I repeatedly convince people like them to buy?