Mar 31, 2025 · 17m · founders-journal
My biz's 6 defining moments
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Alex Lieberman details the two-year retrospective of his B2B agency StoryArb through six defining milestones, sharing actionable lessons on customer validation, leadership recruitment, product pivots, and scaling dilemmas.
Statements from this episode (6)
Founders should secure paying customers before incorporating or pitching
“And then the third step in the process was to actually secure paying customers before doing anything else. No website, no customer pitch deck. At the time, I hadn't even incorporated the business. All I care about is proving that people are willing to pay for …”
Lieberman took zero profit on StoryArb's first five clients
“During this phase in the process, I also optimized for learning over profit, which is why for the first five Storyarb customers, I was making zero dollars, and I was just passing through all payments From customers to ghostwriters as I tried to learn as much a…”
StoryArb tested its incoming CEO via a one-month freelance contract
“We agreed to a month-long freelancing CEO contract. Basically, the plan was that for a month, Abby would run the business to get a feel for if she'd be excited running StoryArb and working with me, and it would give me clarity on if I think she was right for t…”
Lieberman: Early-stage founders are typically bad, demanding customers
“First, early stage founders are typically really bad customers. They're the most resource constrained. Oftentimes they're the most demanding. And if they don't have product market fit, you are making a bet on their business in order for them to stay a customer…”