Do you tell your customers you're a solo founder?
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I've run my company in Japan for 22 years, mostly on my own. And in Japan, I sometimes deliberately didn't mention that.
My reasoning was:
・Customers there want to pay for a proper product
・Given the choice, I think many would pick something built by a team of 10, even at 20% more, over a product
from one person who sounds stretched thin
・So saying "it's just me" felt like it would cost trust
Now that I've started sharing my work in English, I've decided to do the opposite and say it openly. A few people here told me that people buy from people, and that stuck with me.
Do you tell your customers you're a solo founder? Has it ever helped you, or hurt you?
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Replies
@hisashispace Nowadays, it's totally fine to work solo - a team of agents can replace a 20-member team =)
@adana Agreed =) Over 90% of my work runs through agents now. My emails, support replies and docs all start there. The catch in Japan is that customers would still rather buy from a company than from one person, so I have kept quiet about it at times.
Yes!! I do tell my customers and other founders that I am working solo, and till now none of them have been disappointed with that. In fact, some of them do appreciate me for working solo :)
@kushagra_agrawal8 Good to hear it's been working that way for you. It's been different for me in Japan. For a SaaS, people tend to trust an organization more than one person, so I've kept it quiet at times. Nice to see the other side of it.