If you’ve ever thought, “I have skills but no idea how to get my first paying customer without a product, funding, or a big audience,” this episode is for you.

Professor Gary Palin, angel investor and entrepreneurship educator, delivers the battle-tested “First Customer Cheat Sheet” — a 10-step roadmap refined over 40+ years to go from zero to paid clients fast, often in weeks and sometimes before your product is even finished.

Hundreds of founders have used these exact steps to land $5,000–$20,000 in sales while others are still building. This is the ignition key to real revenue: no fluff, just actionable entrepreneurship tips.

Key steps include:

• Finding one high-demand problem in your niche
• Crafting your one-sentence offer
• Building a simple landing page
• Pricing and delivering offers you can fulfill tomorrow
• Driving traffic and cold outreach
• Running tight discovery calls
• Closing sales and scaling with testimonials

This concentrated cheat sheet has started many real businesses using this framework to secure their first paying customer.

For the full First Customer Playbook — complete with scripts, templates, cold DMs, call frameworks, landing page copy, and 7-day launch checklist used with $10K+ clients.

Become a Pro Subscriber at profspirit.substack.com.

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Let’s get entrepreneurial — the smart way.

🔥 BONUS: Unlock your Janus Entrepreneurial Score and see your personal entrepreneurship tendencies scores by taking the Janus Entrepreneurial Assessment

This entrepreneur podcast delivers startup advice, business growth strategies, and practical lessons for entrepreneurs ready to enhance their revenue model and scale a startup sustainably.

New episodes drop every other Tuesday.

Title: How to Get Your First Paying Customer (No Product Needed)

Other episodes with startup growth and founder insights:

• 9 Founders: The Nights They Almost Shut Down (Startup Stories)
• Investor Red Flags That Can Kill Your Startup (Run from These)
• Upselling Strategies and Cross-Selling Techniques to Skyrocket Startup Revenue

You can book a Virtual Coaching session to assist your entrepreneurial journey.

Join our Let’s Get Entrepreneurial community and let’s embark on this adventure together!

Today I’m sharing the nine founder stories that completely rewired how I think about building companies. These aren’t the polished versions — these are the nights they almost shut down, the decisions that saved them, and the one mindset shift that changed everything…”These stories hit me so hard I dropped this episode early.

These 9 real startup stories will hit you in the chest:

• The unicorn that raised $65 M, hit $100 M revenue… and still went bankrupt
• 11 days of cash left when the world shut down
• The founder who fired himself as CEO
• The co-founder divorce saved by one shotgun clause
• The single mom on food stamps → $40 M exit
• Two “boring” tools that hit $100 M ARR with ~11 people
• A major fraud in startup history
• The night a dad almost lost everything to Staples… and the ad that turned customers into evangelists

Raw founder startup stories for every entrepreneur who’s ever stared at the ceiling at 3 a.m.

If one of these hits you, leave a review and tell us which night felt the most real — so the next founder finds this before it’s too late.

Let’s get entrepreneurial — the smart way.

🔥 BONUS: Unlock your Janus Entrepreneurial Score and see your personal entrepreneurship tendencies scores by taking the Janus Entrepreneurial Assessment

This entrepreneur podcast delivers startup advice, business growth strategies, and practical lessons for entrepreneurs ready to enhance their revenue model and scale a startup sustainably.

New episodes drop every other Tuesday.

Title: 9 Founders: The Nights They Almost Shut Down (Startup Stories)

Other episodes with startup growth and founder insights:

• Investor Red Flags That Can Kill Your Startup (Run from These)
• Upselling Strategies and Cross-Selling Techniques to Skyrocket Startup Revenue
• Finding the Right Startup Mentor to Accelerate Growth and Strengthen Your Entrepreneur Mindset

You can book a Virtual Coaching session to assist your entrepreneurial journey.

Join our Let’s Get Entrepreneurial community and let’s embark on this adventure together!

Raising money feels amazing — until the wrong investor turns your dream into a nightmare. In this hard-hitting episode. Professor Gary Palin, angel investor & entrepreneurship educator, and Ryan Budden serial entrepreneur & startup consultant, pull back the curtain on the investor red flags that can literally kill your startup.

If you’re fundraising or ever plan to, you can’t afford to miss these warning signs:

• The “sign today or the deal dies” rush tactic
• Control-obsessed investors demanding weekly 4-hour reports and veto rights
• Short-term flippers who only care about a quick exit
• Strategic investors quietly trying to turn you into their private supplier
• Disrespectful communication and zero value beyond cash
• The dangerous myth of “we don’t need a lawyer, it’s just boilerplate”
• How desperation lets predators rewrite terms at the last second

This isn’t theory. These are real-world investor red flags that have wrecked companies — and the practical checklist every founder needs before signing a term sheet.

Whether you’re talking to angels, VCs, or family investors, learn how to spot toxic money fast and protect your equity, vision, and sanity.

Perfect for first-time founders and seasoned entrepreneurs who never want to be controlled by the wrong check.

Let’s get entrepreneurial — the smart way.

🔥 BONUS: Unlock your Janus Entrepreneurial Score and see your personal entrepreneurship tendencies scores by taking the Janus Entrepreneurial Assessment

This entrepreneur podcast delivers startup advice, business growth strategies, and practical lessons for entrepreneurs ready to enhance their revenue model and scale a startup sustainably.

New episodes drop every other Tuesday.

Title: Investor Red Flags That Can Kill Your Startup (Run from These)

Other episodes with startup growth and founder insights:

• Upselling Strategies and Cross-Selling Techniques to Skyrocket Startup Revenue
• Finding the Right Startup Mentor to Accelerate Growth and Strengthen Your Entrepreneur Mindset
• What Startup Founders Should Know About Becoming an Effective CEO

You can book a Virtual Coaching session to assist your entrepreneurial journey.

Join our Let’s Get Entrepreneurial community and let’s embark on this adventure together!