There is a lot of startup wisdom out there.

On hearing for the first time, they make sense.

You start applying the advice. You push and will through it.

However things do not work out.

This is the most frustrating experience for me as a founder. I can fix the problems I understand. However, I cannot fix the ones I don't even know were possible to exist.

I will list some of the wisdom I received and applied vs the ones I actually experienced.

Wisdom 1: Talk to customers personally each and every time

This is a big one.

Jeff Bezos, Brian Chesky - all great founders do and have said this.

If the founder joins the meeting personally, the customer will feel special. They will feel valued and heard.

After all who does not like to talk to the founder of a tech company?

What really happened:

I talked to each and every customer. I hired a salesperson, Hussein. I taught them about the product so they can demo it the best way possible.

I still went into every single meeting we booked. I tried my best not to look like an investigator or an observer to the extent that I took over a lot of demos in the middle of the demo (maybe the wrong call).

Sales were not increasing.

So Hussein did a quick study, going back to the customers we had talked to and the recordings of those calls.

Turns out:

1. We did not convert any customer where Hussein and myself were both present in the meeting.
2. We converted more than 50% of the customers where either Hussein or myself alone were present.

Why?

There is no definite way to find out why. Maybe we were just plain shit in the demos. I still have my guesses:

1. It feels too desperate as a founder to join the first meeting. It is just human nature to assume so. Most customers want to work with Spiderman, not Peter Parker. Being cocky and unreachable in certain ways might actually give an illusion of grandeur that would benefit you.
2. Opinions spoken by 2 people in the same demo is too much, too noisy.
3. The founder joining the call and waiting in the background listening makes the meeting unnatural. It can seem like the founder is testing and observing the salesperson.