May 16, 2023 · 45m · saastr
CRO Confidential: 3 Secrets For Early-Stage Startups To Acquire Customers | CoSell.io Co-Founder
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Host Sam Blonde and CoSell co-founder Brendan Cassidy discuss modern customer acquisition strategies for early-stage B2B startups, explaining why warm referral networks, creative direct outreach, and reference selling outperform traditional cold outbound playbooks.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 5.4 Guest teaching 3.6 Guest disagreement 1.6 Jason pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 43:25 Brendan dismisses dogmatic sales methodologies
Brendan forcefully attacks rigid adherence to off-the-shelf sales frameworks like SPIN or BANT, warning founders that following them strictly leads straight to the startup graveyard.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 20:10 Sam pushes on Brendan's early role at GongSam pushes on Brendan's advisory role at Gong, prompting Brendan to carefully clarify the boundary between full credit and his actual contribution to early customer traction.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:18 Brendan explains the limits of relying on karma for introductionsBrendan breaks down why relying on casual favors fails over time, quoting sales leaders who note their 'belly is full of karma' to show why financial compensation is mandatory for continuous intros.
Jason holds their own ▶ 12:20 Sam details Brex's champagne and local outbound strategySam demonstrates firsthand mastery by breaking down the exact conversion metrics and tactical execution of Brex's early hyper-targeted champagne campaign.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CoSell's Founding and the Decline of Cold Outbound | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Brendan and Sam have a collaborative discussion about CoSell and the waning effectiveness of cold spray-and-pray outbound. Sam shares his own insights as a former sales leader at Zenefits and Brex, validating Brendan's thesis. | |
| Brex's Early Outbound Campaigns and Guerrilla Tactics | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Sam shares extensive direct expertise on Brex's early go-to-market tactics, explaining the YC network effects and the famous Veuve Clicquot champagne campaign. Brendan interjects with supportive banter. | |
| Gong's Initial Trajectory and Paid Connector Playbook | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Brendan breaks down his playbook as Gong's first advisor, detailing how paid connectors open doors and why relying on uncompensated favors ('karma') inevitably stalls out. | |
| Turning Customers into Paid Advisors and Scaling Referrals | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Sam gently clarifies Brendan's contribution at Gong, while Brendan emphasizes that introducing high-credibility figures requires real compensation rather than casual asks. Both agree enthusiastically on paying connectors and advisors. | |
| Reference Selling and Leveraging Customer Proof in Deals | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Sam describes how he leveraged the Aetna logo to win subsequent major health insurance accounts, and Brendan reinforces this with their shared history of reference selling at EchoSign. | |
| Unconventional Direct Drops and Prospect Personalization Tactics | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | The conversation covers direct physical gifts like donuts and champagne versus ineffective Starbucks cards, before Brendan pushes the necessity of having a distinct 'angle' whenever reaching out to high-profile prospects. | |
| Core Startup Advice on Problem Definition and Sales | 5 | 6 | 3 | 1 | Brendan delivers strong parting advice, critiquing founders who lack a one-sentence problem definition and warning against dogmatic adherence to single sales methodologies like BANT or Spin Selling. | |
| Episode Conclusion and SaaStr Europa Conference Preview | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | A brief outro where Sam wraps up the episode and promotes the upcoming SaaStr Europa conference in London. |
Statements from this episode (11)
Blond: Brex scaled revenue from zero to $400 million
“The 10 hacks that helped Brex scale from zero to four hundred million in revenue.”
Cassidy: Mass quasi-personalized cold outbound email is waning in effectiveness
“The sort of cold sort of outreach playbook, right, of like, let's just sort of spam the market with sort of quasi personalized communication is waning in effectiveness, right? You should do it, by the way. It's sort of table stakes. You have to do it. On some …”
Blond: Brex acquired most of its Y Combinator batch before launch
“We restricted the outbound to the YC batch that they were in into prior YC batches also. And we acquired most of their YC batch and dozens of companies from prior YC batches also.”
Blond: Brex's champagne outbound campaign saw a 75% reply rate
“The champagne campaign where we sent bottles of Vuv Cliqueau along with handwritten notes from Enrique, and we automated that handwritten note process. Just saying congratulations on your recent fundraise. We're a fellow early stage startup located in the Bay …”
Cassidy: Half of Gong's first 100 customers came from personal networks
“Probably 30 of our first 50, probably 50 of our first hundred customers were all through sort of our collective network.”
Cassidy: Relying on cold outreach early is a mistake for B2B startups
“I don't want to, if we're making cold calls, we're doing something wrong, right? If we're blasting cold emails, we're doing something wrong.”
Cassidy: CoSell pays sales advisors $500 a month to open doors
“It means, you know, put them on payroll, you know, so that's what we do. We pay them 500 bucks a month. They open a certain number of doors for us and you know, wet their beak a little bit, right?”
Blond: Grant equity to customer champions who act as standalone advisors
“If this person wasn't a customer, would they make for a good advisor? And if the answer is yes, then make them an advisor as a customer and compensate them with that equity.”
Cassidy: The vast majority of VCs will not continuously open doors
“You know, sort of, hey, let's tap into our investors, VCs, and they will help, but they're not going to continuously help because at some point they'll just say like, yeah, I made some interest for you, bro. Like, you know, the reason I invested in you guys is…”
Blond: EchoSign's Aetna case study closed United, Cigna, and BCBS
“I closed Aetna when we were at Echosign and we did a press release with Aetna or convinced them to do a press release with us. Around how much paper they were saving by going green and doing electronic signature. And it was, you know, millions of pieces of pap…”
Cassidy: Rigidly adhering to a single sales methodology will kill a startup
“There is no one sales methodology that is going to answer you know, that is going to solve all the things in front of you, right? And so you see some people that are like, I subscribe to this theory, like, you know, band or solution selling or spin selling or …”