We had a good discussion yesterday on the Founders Project about bringing in users that I want to highlight.
A founder shared his insight from some user interactions during the week: When you are talking to a potential user, and they show an interest, you want to keep the momentum going in that moment, and avoid things that will slow that momentum.
So, ideally, during that conversation you sign up the user and have them start using the product right there and then.
Like I talked about in the conversation, I’ve recently had the experience of not doing this. Of talking to a potential user who expressed strong interest, but then leaving it at: So I’ll send you a follow-up email and you can sign up. The much better approach would have been to sign them up and get them started using the product during that conversation.
If signing them up and getting them started during that conversation is not feasible - then you at least want to schedule a set follow-up right there and then.
For example, instead of my saying “I’ll send a follow-up over email and we’ll take it from there,” I could have said “I’ll send a follow-up to get you started, and then can we talk again on [day] at [time] to see how it’s going?” Schedule a set date and time when you will talk again.
This moves to you a crucial perspective with your user interactions: Keep momentum going!
A famous example of this is Stripe, who would not wait for users to take the initiative to set themselves up during the early days. Rather, the story goes, if a user expressed interest, the Stripe founders would say “Great, I’ll set you up right now” - and set them up in that moment, even taking the potential user’s laptop and doing the setup for them.