Scroll your X, LinkedIn and Instagram friend lists and ask anyone with an upcoming event

Pat WallsOkay, cool. We talk a lot about building, but I think maybe the more important thing here is validating. So, tell me about how you validated Once.

Brian ShinI did two things to validate our product and to get our first customers. The most obvious thing that you can do is just go through your personal network. And what I do is, I open up three different tabs. I have my X open, I have my LinkedIn open, and I have my Instagram or Facebook open up. I have my friends list. I just go through every single one of them and see who might be a good fit. So literally, I circled everyone who had a potential event coming up, and it was four friends who said, "Okay, I would love to try it." It was a Halloween party, birthday party, one wedding, and one networking event.

Brian ShinSo this is the second part. Now you have to go outside of your inner circle and really try to reach out to everyone who could be your potential customers. So, what I did was, since Once could be used at parties, at events, at weddings, I searched on Instagram like hashtag wedding, hashtag birthday party, and across platform, we had around 250 to 300 people listed out. I wrote down a very simple, cold-message type of two to three sentences max …