Pete Kuman

Pete Kuman, YC group partner and Optimizely co-founder, explains how startup founders can close their first enterprise customers. He walks through prospecting, outreach, qualification, demos, pricing, closing, and implementation, emphasizing that founders should lead early sales themselves. The talk focuses on finding customers with a real problem and buying authority, listening before pitching, and tailoring demos and pricing to what each prospect needs. It closes with the lesson that a sale is not complete until the customer is successfully using the product.

The talk reviews four product websites to show how design choices affect customer conversion. It recommends making the product and intended audience clear, focusing each page on a strong call to action, and repeating that action where users are likely to decide. It also covers reducing signup friction, guiding new users to the product’s value, and using analytics to find drop-off points in the conversion funnel. Trust signals and clear product demonstrations can help visitors understand and feel confident trying a product.