Episode 852 | Getting Big Name Customer Case Studies and More Listener Questions (with Ruben Gamez)

Startups for the Rest of Us · Publié le 29 sept. 2026 · Durée 32:18

A podcast episode featuring Ruben Gamez and Rob Walling discussing practical aspects of customer discovery, case study acquisition, and early-stage product strategy, with emphasis on buyer behavior research, contractual flexibility for customers, and internal advocacy needs for enterprise case studies. Lisez 3 points de vue avec leurs éléments à l’appui et les liens vers les sources.

Rob Walling Ruben GamezColin Bartlett

Lire les points clés Ouvrir Éditeur

En un coup d’œil

Talk to people to learn how buyers behave, not to validate product-market fit
When speaking with founders or growth people from similar spaces, the goal is not to validate whether people will pay for the product, but to learn how people buy, what channels work best, and why previous attempts succeeded or failed.
Lire le moment probant · Paragraphe 8
Include an opt-out clause to reduce customer risk in case study agreements
To address customer concerns about premature commitment, offer a time-bound opt-out clause (e.g., 60–90 days) allowing them to decline the case study if the product fails to deliver value.
Lire le moment probant · Paragraphe 34
Leverage needed for big-company case studies
Securing case studies from larger companies requires internal advocacy because they often have formal policies; without someone internally championing the request, it's very difficult to obtain them after the customer is already using the product.
Lire le moment probant · Paragraphe 37

Moments clés3

Extraits courts et attribués, avec le contexte permettant de les vérifier. La conversation complète reste chez son éditeur.

Paragraphe 8

customer discovery

Talk to people to learn how buyers behave, not to validate product-market fit

Extrait original

I think of it more in terms of you’re not validating the product, you’re trying to find out how people buy, what the best channels are, things like that.

Ruben Gamez·29 sept. 2026

Contexte

Yeah. No one’s going to do that. I think we’ve talked about this multiple times in the past. It’s so much work. It’s just so much work too. Even if somebody thinks, “Oh, this is a good idea. I’m going to do it,” nobody actually does that. But if they were to do that, then they might have a burst of energy for what? For a day, for a few days, for a week, but to actually build it out and do all that work, yeah, people don’t do that. The other thing I had was that he was talking about it in terms of validation, and So I did that with SignWell. I talked to several people that had done e-signature startups either as founders or growth people, part of the team for certain products.

Paragraphe 34

case studies

Include an opt-out clause to reduce customer risk in case study agreements

Extrait original

We’re going to sign this contract with this discount if you do a case study, and you’re agreeing to do it now, but you can basically say no between now and the first 90 days or 60 days.

Rob Walling·29 sept. 2026

Contexte

Now. He had an objection to that already where he said, “If they haven’t really used this yet and they’re just signing, they may not want to agree to it because it might not work for them.” I would say then offer them a 90 day out clause just on the case study. Be like, “ ” I’m making up the time here, but I understand that. We actually at TinySeed MicroConf recently signed a deal like this, and someone gave us a really good deal, a good price reduction, with the thought that our case study, if it is viable, I mean if it becomes a thing, is worth a lot to them.

Paragraphe 37

customer case studies

Leverage needed for big-company case studies

Extrait original

if you’re dealing with a bigger company where they have a policy or something, you really need somebody to fight for that in some way, shape, or form.

Ruben Gamez·29 sept. 2026

Contexte

Yeah. You need leverage for them to actually… We’ve gone back and we’ve gotten case studies afterwards. We did, once Sam, the new CEO for SignWell, got in, he did a bunch of that. And some said yes, some just didn’t reply or anything like that. But And once they’re already using the product, if you can’t find any leverage, then it’s going to be really tough.

Source et méthodologie

Ces points de vue renvoient à leurs sources originales. Les reformulations sont signalées et ne sont pas des citations mot à mot.

Ouvrir la transcription ou les documents sources Signaler un problème