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by charlesju 5854 days ago
Why wouldn't you hire someone to do this for you? Seems like a waste of your time.
3 comments

"Getting out of the building" is not a task you want to outsource. Speaking to initial potential customers is critical to the start up and must involve the founders. Once you establish product/market fit outsiders can come into play.
The process of sending messages and setting up the initial contact is pretty mechanical, should be easy to outsource if you're smart about it.

Of course, the CEO should close the leads himself.

A friend of mine just outsourced this very task. They sent the emails in bulk, and most (if not all) of the company names were wrong. Ouch.

Things like this really kill your chances to have a good start out of the gate. I think it's better to micro-manage your customer contacts.

Quoting Steve Blank:

Customer Development is the process of how you get out of the building and search for the model. Customer Development is designed so that you the founder(s) gather first hand experience about customer and market needs. It can’t be delegated. Let me say it again: Getting customer feedback can not be delegated.

http://steveblank.com/2010/05/13/consultants-don%E2%80%99t-p...