Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…Design partners are incredible. They're the hardest logos to upsell, meaning go from design partner to full rollout customer. So don't expect these people to be your million dollar pipeline. Expect these people to be the guide, to help you understand, maybe design partners could be a technology company in the Fortune 1,000. So they're used to experimenting. They're used to technology, they're used to, they were once a startup, so they get it. Those make really good design partners. Most of the design partners that I've closed are usually technology based. They get it and they also are excited about advancing the org and also giving the team an ability to have that startup feel. So if you're a large massive corporation like Stripe. Stripe doesn't get that startup vibe as much like that 50 person startup vibe, but this can be a gift to give them that lens and give them that voice and give them that excitement that they don't get as a larger company. But those are great types of logos to be early design partners because one, they want to make sure they continue to stay on the cutting edge, but two is they are, to try and build something without that guidance is really, really, really hard because they're not using it. So you need that user feedback and you also need to tie that to the executive value. It's actually a lot, it's very hard to do, but if you can come out of it and upsell a design partner to a full rollout customer, such a huge win for the market for you, for your team, and also for your investors because it's the hardest customer to actually truly convert. They've been it when it was messy, they usually got a low price point. But if you again frame it, say, "Listen, I would love for you to be a design partner. I want a little skin in the game to get you to point it. Here's where we want to go and you'll get a discount because you were in the beginning, but I'm setting the framing. Here's where we want to go with pricing. Here's where we are today. You'll always have 30% concession in perpetuity because you are there with us on day one." So again, it's not about asking for $10,000 and then not expecting that design partner to upsell and keep it flat because there's no growth there. It's a flat. It's about getting that early design partner, set the framing, own the framing and let them know where you're going. Again, a $100,000 to these large logos if they want it, it's very easy for them to get it in. There's this really interesting underlying piece of advice of finding a company that pulls you in the direction that leads to success. A company that's kind of a visionary. There's the obvious companies that everyone is always trying to get these days, OpenAI and Anthropic and Stripe I think is one. And any advice for just picking the right early? What are signs that this is a company that will point you in the right direction? I think they have to be part of a logo that is deemed startup-friendly or in that world, and then I think it's the person, is this person excited to give feedback? Does this person buy in to where we're going? Do they see this world differently like us? Are they in lockstep with the founder vision? Are they excited to use a tool that's janky? Because it is janky in the beginning, but they know that where this can go can be incredible. So I think it's really about the person and making sure that they're aligned for what they're getting into, and I think a lot of salespeople oversell it. I think that's a common thing that happens and that leads to churn, that leads to frustration, that leads to sometimes just canceling the contract.…

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