First off, I am a former college soccer (football for your non-Americans) player, so I have a unique founder-market fit. I have gone through the process of getting recruited and saw an opportunity to build a new tool in the space.
A few things I liked about this idea was that there were plenty of existing competitors, so the market was validated. There was also a significant opportunity to sell B2B, which was huge for me as I wanted to avoid a B2C business model.
I also knew that as a technical founder, I could move faster and build a better product than most competitors, given that non-technical teams primarily found them.
MicroFounder
How did you find your first customers?
Colin
Mainly on Twitter.
I focused on interacting with the youth/college soccer coach community on Twitter to find my first few customers. On launch day, I sold 6-lifetime subscriptions to athletes (B2C), and soon after that, I landed my first B2B customer.
MicroFounder
How are you finding your customers today?
Colin
Today it is a mix of SEO and cold outreach.
I haven't focused a ton on SEO yet. I am about to get an aHrefs subscription and ramp-up. Even so, I am finding that most customers that book demos found us through google, which is fantastic! I am thinking of not only blogging more but heavily investing in data-driven programmatic SEO.
As far as cold outreach, I have seen some success. I have not done it at scale, but if I find an organization that I think will be a good fit, I write a personalized email or DM and make sure to follow up. I use close.com as my CRM, and it's fantastic for this. I have also found some success finding recruiting businesses on Instagram that I can reach out to.
I am scheduled to go to the US Soccer Coaches Convention in January. I purchased a booth and am excited to see how many demos I can book. I feel this could have a big payoff moving forward, and if it works well, I can go to the coaching conventions for other sports next.
MicroFounder
What's your advice for other microfounders who want to get started?
Colin
I've made a ton of mistakes as a founder, but one thing I've done well is talking to customers. I build relationships with them on demos and continue to ask for feedback after they sign up. Having these conversations has made it so easy to know what to build.
Also, if you're like me and have a full-time job, don't quit for as long as you can. I am still working full-time as a software engineer. Until the business matches my income, I do not plan to quit and go full-time.
