How do you write down who has a hair-on-fire problem?

Early-stage sales isn't about convincing people. It's about filtering down to the 5-6 people out of 100 who have a hair-on-fire version of the problem you solve. Write a 1-page spec: who has this problem badly enough to take a call from a stranger, what 'success' looks like for them in 6 months, and what would have to be true for them to pay you.

How do you start with the easy asks, then work up?

Asks have a difficulty hierarchy. 'Click this useful article' is a 1/10. 'Free dinner with peers' is a 2/10. 'Accept free work I'm offering you' is a 6/10. 'Demo with a vendor you've never heard of' is a 10/10. Start at the 1s and 2s to open conversations, then work up to the demo and the partnership. Most founders try to jump straight to the 10 and wonder why their reply rates are below 1%.

How do you spend 90% of the first call discovering, not pitching?

You have no idea what's actually top of mind for this prospect. Open with one sentence on what you're building, then ask questions. How do they handle this problem today? What have they tried? What broke? What would 'fixed' look like? Pitch only after you understand their world — and pitch the specific problem they just told you about, not a generic feature tour.

How do you propose the partnership explicitly on call #2?

On the second call, name the exchange out loud: 'I'd like to work with you as a design partner for 3-6 months. Here's what I commit to. Here's what I'm asking from you. Here's why it works for both of us.' This is the conversation that separates a design partnership from a free pilot that drifts forever.

How do you sign a formal Design Partner Agreement, not an LOI?

LOIs are non-binding and leave IP ownership ambiguous — which becomes a problem in fundraising due diligence. Investors will ask: 'Do you have agreements assigning ownership of all IP contributions from your design partners?' Use a proper Design Partner Agreement that covers scope, term, exchange, IP assignment, and the explicit conversion-to-paid clause.

How do you run weekly 30-min syncs and build Customer Success on day 1?

Most design partnerships die in month 2-3 because the founder gets pulled into something else and stops showing up. Block a 30-min weekly sync with each partner from day one. Bring an agenda: what they used, what broke, what they need next, what you shipped this week. The partnership lives or dies on whether you keep your end of the exchange.

How do you convert to paid at the end of the term?

30-60% of design partners convert to paid. The conversation has 4 parts: recap the value delivered (in their numbers, not yours), name a price that feels uncomfortably high to you, handle the inevitable negotiation, and lock in a multi-year commitment in exchange for the discount. Start this conversation 30-45 days before the term ends, not the last week.

How do you publish a case study and use it as your credibility anchor?

A published design-partner case study lifts cold-outbound reply rates 1.4-2.1x on lookalike accounts. This is the asset that compounds. Write it as a story with their actual numbers (problem → what they tried → what you built → result), get their approval in writing, publish it, and reference it in every subsequent cold email to similar accounts.

What goes wrong: You treat the program as discounted sales?

'We'll give you 50% off in exchange for being a launch customer' is a discount, not a design partnership. The real exchange is product access plus founder time in return for feedback, usage rigor, and a published reference. If your first conversation is about price, you're already off-path.

What goes wrong: You build too much before talking to customers?

The #1 mistake in pre-PMF B2B. Founders spend 6 months writing code, launch to silence, and then start talking to customers. The right order is reversed: 30 customer conversations first, then build the smallest thing that addresses what they actually said.

What goes wrong: You confuse politeness with demand?

Sales leaders especially give wildly positive false signals — they're trained to be encouraging. Watch what they do, not what they say. If 15 people say they want your product and 14 don't click the signup link, you have zero buyers, not 15.

What goes wrong: You under-invest in the program after signing?

Most DPs die in month 2-3 because the founder stops showing up. Once that trust breaks, you don't get it back. The 10-15 hours/week is non-negotiable. If you can't budget it, sign fewer partners.

What goes wrong: You pick partners who say yes too easily?

The friendly contact who agrees to 'help out' rarely teaches you the most. The best design partners push back on your assumptions and have an expensive problem they're actively trying to solve. If recruiting was easy, your ICP is probably too soft.

What goes wrong: You skip the end-of-term paid conversion?

Many founders avoid the awkward 'now you have to pay' moment and let the partnership drift into permanent free. This is how you end up at month 12 with 3 partners using your product, none paying, and no commercial signal. Have the conversation at month 5, not month 12.

What goes wrong: You don't get IP assignment in writing?

Design partners contribute to your product through their feedback and use case. Without a written IP-assignment clause in the agreement, ownership is ambiguous — and your fundraising due diligence will get held up until you backfill it. Get it right in the agreement.

Playbook · Design partners

Find your first 3-5 design partners

The pre-PMF B2B play that gets you to first logos, first product validation, and the case studies that recruit the next wave — without selling yet.

Who this is for

Pre-PMF B2B SaaS founders selling to mid-market or enterprise. Especially YC founders during or just after the batch.

Time to ship

3-5 weeks to sign first 3 partners. 6-9 months to convert them to paid.

What you’ll do

You'll write down who has a hair-on-fire version of your problem (not just anyone who might be interested), use the right asks to open conversations, run discovery calls that listen more than they pitch, propose the partnership explicitly, sign a formal Design Partner Agreement (not an LOI), run weekly syncs with budgeted founder time, convert at the end of the term, and turn the result into a case study that compounds.

The steps

01
Write down who has a hair-on-fire problem
Day 1 · 2 hours
Early-stage sales isn't about convincing people. It's about filtering down to the 5-6 people out of 100 who have a hair-on-fire version of the problem you solve. Write a 1-page spec: who has this problem badly enough to take a call from a stranger, what 'success' looks like for them in 6 months, and what would have to be true for them to pay you.
- Be specific. 'B2B SaaS company' is not a profile. 'Series A/B fintechs running fraud ops with a 5-15 person ops team and a manual SQL-driven workflow' is a profile.
- List 30 named target companies. If you can't name 30, your ICP is too narrow or you haven't researched enough.
- Read The Mom Test. The single most useful book on how to talk to early customers without poisoning your own data with leading questions.
↳ Reference: ICP hypothesis testing
02
Start with the easy asks, then work up
Week 1-3 · ongoing
Asks have a difficulty hierarchy. 'Click this useful article' is a 1/10. 'Free dinner with peers' is a 2/10. 'Accept free work I'm offering you' is a 6/10. 'Demo with a vendor you've never heard of' is a 10/10. Start at the 1s and 2s to open conversations, then work up to the demo and the partnership. Most founders try to jump straight to the 10 and wonder why their reply rates are below 1%.
- Offer value before asking for anything. Run a vulnerability scan on their product. Audit their onboarding flow. Send a free competitive analysis. These are 4-6/10 asks that feel like gifts.
- Create exclusivity. 'We're opening 5 design-partner spots and expect them all to be filled by the end of the month' is materially more likely to get a yes than 'we'd love to chat about working together.'
- Warm intros from your network, YC batchmates, Group Partners, or existing customers convert at 3-5x cold outbound. Exhaust those first.
- For cold outbound, target ~250 personalized emails/week per founder. That's roughly a full-time job during the batch.
↳ Reference: Design partner recruiting math
03
Spend 90% of the first call discovering, not pitching
Week 2-4
You have no idea what's actually top of mind for this prospect. Open with one sentence on what you're building, then ask questions. How do they handle this problem today? What have they tried? What broke? What would 'fixed' look like? Pitch only after you understand their world — and pitch the specific problem they just told you about, not a generic feature tour.
- The signal you want is unprompted enthusiasm. 'Tell me more about that' beats 'that's interesting.'
- Distinguish idle interest from real pain. 'Totally see the value' means they don't care. Real pain sounds like 'when can I use this?' or 'can you set up a meeting with my CTO?'
- Don't believe sales leaders. They give the most enthusiastic false positives in B2B — they're trained to be encouraging. Watch what they do, not what they say. If they tell you they want it but don't click the signup link, they don't want it.
↳ Reference: Discovery call architecture
04
Propose the partnership explicitly on call #2
Week 2-4
On the second call, name the exchange out loud: 'I'd like to work with you as a design partner for 3-6 months. Here's what I commit to. Here's what I'm asking from you. Here's why it works for both of us.' This is the conversation that separates a design partnership from a free pilot that drifts forever.
- What you commit to: product access, weekly founder time, fast iteration on their feedback, a published case study at the end.
- What you ask for: deep usage, structured weekly feedback, intro to 1-2 peers, and explicit agreement to convert to paid at the end of the term if it's working.
- Always ask for money — even small money. Even $500-2,000/mo. Willingness to pay is the single strongest PMF signal. Free users give low-quality feedback and disengage. A money-back guarantee is better than free.
- If they hesitate on the conversion-to-paid clause, they don't actually believe this will work. Better to learn now than at month 6.
↳ Reference: Structuring the agreement
05
Sign a formal Design Partner Agreement, not an LOI
Week 4-5
LOIs are non-binding and leave IP ownership ambiguous — which becomes a problem in fundraising due diligence. Investors will ask: 'Do you have agreements assigning ownership of all IP contributions from your design partners?' Use a proper Design Partner Agreement that covers scope, term, exchange, IP assignment, and the explicit conversion-to-paid clause.
- Use a template — don't invent. Search 'design partner agreement template' or ask your Group Partner.
- Scope: what you'll build, what they'll use, what data they'll share. Term: 3-9 months. Exchange: product access + founder time → feedback + reference + conversion to paid.
- Enterprise design partners (Fortune 500) will want a longer agreement, IP clauses they've reviewed, and a security questionnaire. Add 4-6 weeks for that.
- Get IP assignment in writing. Design partners contributing heavy feedback are contributing to your product — the agreement makes the IP yours, not theirs.
↳ Reference: Agreement template
06
Run weekly 30-min syncs and build Customer Success on day 1
Ongoing · 10-15 hours/week
Most design partnerships die in month 2-3 because the founder gets pulled into something else and stops showing up. Block a 30-min weekly sync with each partner from day one. Bring an agenda: what they used, what broke, what they need next, what you shipped this week. The partnership lives or dies on whether you keep your end of the exchange.
- Track per partner: weekly active usage, top 3 issues, requests shipped this week, NPS at week 4/8/12.
- Be honest about what you can and can't deliver. Promising what doesn't exist yet, then disappearing, is how partnerships die. Promise the timeline, then ship.
- If a partner ghosts you for 2 consecutive weeks, the partnership is over. Have the honest conversation early — don't let it drag.
- Time budget: 10-15 hours/week across all 3 partners (calls, async support, feature work driven by their feedback). If you can't budget this, you can't run a DP program.
↳ Reference: Running the program
07
Convert to paid at the end of the term
Month 6-9
30-60% of design partners convert to paid. The conversation has 4 parts: recap the value delivered (in their numbers, not yours), name a price that feels uncomfortably high to you, handle the inevitable negotiation, and lock in a multi-year commitment in exchange for the discount. Start this conversation 30-45 days before the term ends, not the last week.
- Ask for more than feels comfortable. If you name a price and they don't flinch, you priced too low. If they negotiate down 50-70%, you priced about right.
- Frame pricing around value, not cost. 'This saves you $200K/year in fraud losses' → price at 20-40% of that ($40-80K). Charging $5K/year because that's what feels comfortable leaves money on the table forever.
- Bundle platform fee (the technology value) separately from per-unit pricing. Reframes the conversation from 'why is your X expensive' to 'is your platform worth $X/year.'
- Aim for multi-year contracts in exchange for the launch-customer discount. A 30-50% discount for a 2-year commitment is reasonable.
↳ Reference: Converting to paid
08
Publish a case study and use it as your credibility anchor
Month 7-10
A published design-partner case study lifts cold-outbound reply rates 1.4-2.1x on lookalike accounts. This is the asset that compounds. Write it as a story with their actual numbers (problem → what they tried → what you built → result), get their approval in writing, publish it, and reference it in every subsequent cold email to similar accounts.
- Format: 1 page. Problem they had (in their words) → what they tried before → what you built → the result with specific numbers.
- Get logo permission in writing. Larger companies need legal review — plan for 2-4 weeks.
- One credible logo changes the entire cold-outbound funnel. 'We work with [Recognizable Name]' lifts every metric downstream.
↳ Reference: Reference customer handoff

What goes wrong

The failure modes that catch most founders.

You treat the program as discounted sales
'We'll give you 50% off in exchange for being a launch customer' is a discount, not a design partnership. The real exchange is product access plus founder time in return for feedback, usage rigor, and a published reference. If your first conversation is about price, you're already off-path.
You build too much before talking to customers
The #1 mistake in pre-PMF B2B. Founders spend 6 months writing code, launch to silence, and then start talking to customers. The right order is reversed: 30 customer conversations first, then build the smallest thing that addresses what they actually said.
You confuse politeness with demand
Sales leaders especially give wildly positive false signals — they're trained to be encouraging. Watch what they do, not what they say. If 15 people say they want your product and 14 don't click the signup link, you have zero buyers, not 15.
You under-invest in the program after signing
Most DPs die in month 2-3 because the founder stops showing up. Once that trust breaks, you don't get it back. The 10-15 hours/week is non-negotiable. If you can't budget it, sign fewer partners.
You pick partners who say yes too easily
The friendly contact who agrees to 'help out' rarely teaches you the most. The best design partners push back on your assumptions and have an expensive problem they're actively trying to solve. If recruiting was easy, your ICP is probably too soft.
You skip the end-of-term paid conversion
Many founders avoid the awkward 'now you have to pay' moment and let the partnership drift into permanent free. This is how you end up at month 12 with 3 partners using your product, none paying, and no commercial signal. Have the conversation at month 5, not month 12.
You don't get IP assignment in writing
Design partners contribute to your product through their feedback and use case. Without a written IP-assignment clause in the agreement, ownership is ambiguous — and your fundraising due diligence will get held up until you backfill it. Get it right in the agreement.

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The chapters with the full reference detail.

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Recruiting 30 well-researched design-partner candidates takes 60-80 hours of cold outreach. We do that part — list-building, sequenced outreach, reply triage to your Slack — so you spend your time on the conversations themselves, not on prospecting.

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