Workshop · Vol. 02
How to get your first thousand customers.
A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDERS
Our first event was a build night. For the second, we asked one question: how do you get your first thousand customers?
A hundred of you came out to the GEM Center in Plano on a Saturday night for the answer.
Tarik Nally flew in from Chicago and told us you don’t need to reach a million people. You need a thousand who genuinely care.
Before him, our sponsors took the stage. After him, the questions kept coming for another thirty minutes.
Thank you to IDEA, Muslim Engineers of America and CentriLogix for making the night possible, to the GEM Center for having us, and to Lune Coffee & Co. for the coffee.
That’s Vol. 02. A thousand people who care starts with the hundred who came.
Ibrahim & AbdullahCo-founders, Founders Keepers
THE KEYNOTE
A thousand people who genuinely care.
Tarik Nally
His talk: Getting your first 1,000 customers. Designer, entrepreneur and impact investor. Kale & Flax, his global design and creative agency, works a four-day week.
“I spent my entire career, until probably three or four years ago, being the only Muslim in any room I was ever in.”Kale & Flax
Pivot.Belief Capital.Anti-Goals.
- 01
You don’t need to reach a million people.
You need to make 1,000 people genuinely care.
- 02
Nobody cares about your startup.
It’s your job to change that.
- 03
This question shapes everything.
Why should anyone care about what I’m building?
- 04
Rarely do products alone move the needle.
Am I offering people a better ___________?
- 05
Build for trust and stop renting attention.
Remove friction and elevate the human touch.
- 06
Get out of the weeds and focus on your garden.
Apple sold a worldview. Nike celebrated human ambition. Airbnb made strangers feel at home (originally).
- 07
In the beginning.
You’ve heard the timeless phrase “Do the thing that doesn’t scale.”
- 08
Make your ‘thing’ sticky.
Listen, improve, become indispensable to ‘the few.’
- 09
Tell the story with authority.
What are you fighting for? Make them believers.
- 10
Your friends are not your customers.
If they support, awesome. But they’re not your target customer.
He closed by offering one startup $15k of Kale & Flax’s support over two months.
OUR SPONSORS
The sponsors who made the night possible.
IDEA
Visit IDEA
Muslim Engineers of America
CentriLogix
Visit CentriLogix
HOW THE NIGHT RAN
Doors at six, talking until nine.
- 6:00–7:00
Arrival, food, networking
- 7:00–7:05
Welcome from Founders Keepers and speaker intro
- 7:05–7:50
Speaker talk
- 7:50–8:20
Moderated Q&A
- 8:20–8:25
Closing takeaway and call to action
- 8:25–9:00
Open networking
THE NIGHT, IN PRINTS
