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Build Your Own Sales Program for Early Stage Companies

Companies can graduate too

Author

Rameel Sheikh
May 01, 2024

Building your own startup program

Partner Insight from Attio*

I've been chatting with the Attio team for an upcoming Sunday deep dive (stay tuned!).

One of the topics we chatted through was what is a startup program, what mistakes to avoid and what to focus on.

Building your company’s startup program can be one of your side projects to help you stand out at your company.

There aren’t too many technical requirements and an obvious connection to top-line revenue.

What leader wouldn’t want more money coming in the pipeline?

So what is a startup program?

Many SaaS products are a great fit for other startups. Startups often become their first beta users and first paying customers.

There's a reason why YC companies prefer to buy other YC company's products.

To tap into this potential, you need to treat startups as a special category of users.

Here's a proven framework from Kyle Poyar on building a startup program that drives growth:

  1. Define your vision: Craft a proposal outlining your program's goals, target audience, growth model, success metrics, and required resources.

  2. Build an MVP: Create landing pages, enable your offering in the product, set up application forms, and test the journey with friendly startups and partners.

  3. Launch with a bang: Enhance discoverability on your website, announce the program in newsletters and events, and educate your internal teams.

  4. Forge partnerships: Reach out to accelerators and incubators, refine your partner offering, and establish a mix of high-touch, mid-touch, and low-touch partnerships.

  5. Scale strategically: Introduce new program tiers, differentiate credit offerings, build strategic partnerships, participate in industry events, and expand startup-related content.

Attio followed a similar model when they first launched their program. My ears perked up when I heard how they planned to price the program.

Alex Vale, Head of Growth, and Roberto Restrepo, Director of Finance, explained that they've landed on providing up to an 80% discount for the 1st year of use.

Instead of providing the tool for free, they wanted buyers to have “skin in the game.”

Adding this bit of friction has helped conversion tremendously.

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