The Enemy Gets A Vote
Most Founders Were Taught to Pitch, Not Sell. We’re Fixing That.
Welcome to 🔥” The Slap” 🔥, the official newsletter of The MisFits, where we dive into what it takes to build a category-defining brands that slap! Visit our website | Listen to our mixtapes | Schedule a call
To the Underdogs, MisFits, and Category Creators,
Pierre Gober & I are building something new. We met in the Military Veteran Startups Slack Channel a few months ago and started tinkering. He’s a Marine like me!
Consider the following our Warning Order (See what I did there, IYKYK):
Move·ment to Con·tact
/ˈMo͞ovmənt Tə ˈKänˌTakt/ · Noun
A deliberate advance into uncertainty used when the enemy’s position is unknown. Movement creates contact. Contact reveals the truth.
The Enemy Gets A Vote
Customers decide what’s real and what’s worth paying for. That’s true whether you’re B2B, B2C, B2G, or all of the above.
If you can’t close customers, you’re not an entrepreneur. Without them, you’re LARPING (Live-Action Role Playing).
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — especially if you’re an Underdog or a Misfit (Military Veteran Founders/CEOs and other one-of-ones) without access to deep pockets.
Entrepreneurship Got Distorted
Somewhere along the way, founders were taught to pitch business ideas to Angels, VCs, and Accelerators/Incubators rather than selling to customers first and validating demand with cash in the bank.
They spend more time tweaking pitch decks, business model canvases, product roadmaps, and sticky notes than they do rolling up their sleeves and talking to prospects.
They count planning as progress and believe that, eventually, scale will take care of itself.
It won’t.
Zero-to-One Is Sales
Sales isn’t optional in the zero-to-one phase. It’s the only thing that matters.
Your first ten customers are the equivalent of hand-to-hand combat. They’re where assumptions die, and reality shows up.
Yet business schools barely teach it. Accelerators talk about scale before traction exists. Advisors give guidance without ever stepping into the market. And founders hide behind decks, features, and funding while avoiding the one thing that matters: revenue.
Without revenue, there is no customer validation.
If you can’t close, you don’t deserve to play.
Prove It
If you think you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, there’s only one way to prove it.
Make contact.
Movement to Contact exists for that moment when you stop guessing and start engaging. We’ll give you the structure and hold you accountable. But execution is on you.
Ready?
P.S. Make sure you play the music in the lower-right corner of the site. You won’t be disappointed!
MisFits Don’t Get Into Flow, We Cook.
That means you’re locked in, head down, and in the zone. To help you get there, we stream the dopest mixtapes this side of the East Coast, thanks to our DJ friends at bunkr.
Additional Resources:
The Category Design Reading Lists
Excellent advice! It seems so obvious yet there's so much out there that sends one down the LARPing path...