Sell Before You Scale
Your first 100 customers don't come from ads, virality or a big following. They come from talking to people. This field guide covers an open-source Claude skill built on that idea, from the playbook of Sahil Lavingia — founder of Gumroad and author of The Minimalist Entrepreneur.
Sell in Concentric Circles
The playbook works outward in three circles: friends and family first, then your community, then cold outreach to strangers. Tell Claude what you sell, and the skill turns that into a plan for this week:
- a list of 20 specific people to pitch — ten and ten
- a personalized cold email
- a pricing recommendation
- a weekly sales goal
A Real Founder's Playbook, Free
The skill comes from Lavingia's open-source skills repo, and it even ships Gumroad's original cold email as its template. Clone the repo into Claude, then ask: "Help me sell to my first 100 customers. Here's my product: …"
You Still Do the Selling
The skill prepares the manual work; it isn't an automation shortcut. You send the emails and have the conversations. Cold outreach is also regulated, so identify yourself and honor opt-outs.
What's in the Guide
The three-circle method, what the skill produces when you describe your product, where the cold email template comes from, how to install it, and a direct link to the repo.
The full field guide is in the PDF.
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