[mustafaekim]

It is hard man, very hard. I struggled for 9 years. I failed 3 startups. I can only hope the best for you.

I went through all the things you say. I stopped doing cold calls. It is the worst thing that happened to me. Very demoralizing and devastating. Sucks my energy and will of live.

Later I fully focused on SEO for the locale market. 6 months later, one day a lady from Sanofi Pharmaceutical called me. They were in hurry to find a local partner for conducting an online proctored exam and somehow I got my first customer within a few business days.

Once you have 1 good customer, you should try to expand over. Here is my advice for this case: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19866334

PS: If you wonder what our product is: https://www.testinvite.com

[boeing767]

Wow. I'm very glad you persisted and kept going. How do you keep your morale so high? The thing about cold-calling is, I've done it before in the past -- I mean, who hasn't worked at a call center before?

But it doesn't feel the same when you're selling YOUR own product. Where every rejection feels like you're a failure, you're failing, and everything you've invested into your company doesn't matter.

I'm still struggling to get my first customer, but just like you and the other comment suggested, I'm definitely working on my SEO, content marketing, inbound marketing.

Do you have any tips besides just optimizing SEO? That feels a bit like a crapshoot based on luck.