Summary of key takeaways from Season 1 of the The First 10 Podcast

“The reasons why I maybe think the way I do or that I react to certain things in certain ways, has helped me to also better understand other people, and why other people think the way they do or act the way they do and helped. It's really helped me to empathise with other people more.”

“The First10, generally we don't know what we're doing. We don't know how to talk about it. We don't know what benefits the people we're talking to are looking for. And sometimes, if this is something you hone after talking to 5 or 10 people, you start seeing their objections..and this is what you can use to build, to tweak your offer and your messaging and everything you're doing for the next 10.”

“The first 10 people you meet aren't going to be your first 10 customers and that's okay. They shouldn't be because you're not for everyone. You can't be for everyone, right? The first 10 can come from anywhere, and it's probably likely that they're coming. They're not coming to knock on your door out of the blue. They're people, you know, they're people in your circle. They're people who have had experience with you before some other way and are willing to try something out because they trust you.”

“I'd say look, look close, there will be a blind spot, probably from your recent history. You already know somebody, already worked with a project you did before, an audience that you served once before, who actually would be great for this, but you've sort of skipped them over.“

“When you're asking questions that people say “I'm not comfortable answering that”, that's where the real nuggets of wisdom lie. And so, to me, that's what great discovery is. It's having a conversation with someone and not just scratching the surface. It's going deep.“

“I like to think of it as just being curious about people..…when you're curious about them, you can't really have any preconceived notions, you're just kind of like, Oh, interesting. You said this, tell me more like, like, why is this interesting to you? Why do you need this? Or what are your needs?”

“We often get caught up in this idea that we have this one idea. That's one thing or this one thought, and we need to make it work. But if we hold on to things too long, if we hold on to something good, we stop ourselves from getting to something great. “

“The difference between being top of mind and close to heart. And so, those first 10 like it's really easy to put a marketing strategy in place and spend lots of money to just kind of spread yourself out there and hope something sticks and hope something lands so reach is not the most exciting or important thing. And in those early days I think the effect of being close to heart, of mattering to someone is what's important and why those first 10 customers are so important because they will tell you so much, especially when launching a new business.“

“We have so little time to make an impact on people, we have to be very, very, very clear about what we want them to know about us. So in order to know that, you have to have a strategy, you need to know how you want to be positioned, which basically means how you want to be regarded by your target market, how did they want to think of you perceive what you can do for them, if you're very, very clear on that, and boil that down into something that's not going to take very long to deliver.“

“Identifying people and having a one-on-one conversation with them. And you would be really surprised how people want to help, as long as you make it genuine and you ask them in a really nice and transparent way. And if you get some no’s, you get some no’s. It's a part of it all.”

“Hello, hello, and welcome to the first 10 podcast. We've all heard the saying, if you build it, they will come. But when it comes to creating new businesses, the reality is more like, if you build a Dell probably do nothing. Every successful company that you can think of started with their first 10 customers, those early believers in your idea are crucial to your success.”