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Key Takeaways Door-to-door sales tactics, like those of Girl Scouts, hone entrepreneurial resilience and interpersonal skills crucial for business founders.
Despite AI’s transformative impact on startups, hands-on approaches remain essential to ensure product-market fit and gain early customer feedback.
Scaling a business too quickly can increase failure risks, highlighting the importance of a balanced approach that includes unscalable, personal efforts.
The doorbell rings, and I glance at my phone to see who it is. On the screen, a Girl Scout in a green sash is standing on the porch, a folding wagon piled high with cookie boxes behind her. I can’t help but smile.
These days, there are lots of ways Girl Scouts can avoid the toil of going door-to-door in pursuit of cookie sales. Online ordering, social media and enterprising parents canvassing the office break room are all easy, effective ways of making big sales in record time.
As an entrepreneur, I’m all for these other tactics. But knocking on doors, introducing yourself and making a pitch, one household at a time, does more than sell Thin Mints: It builds resilience, confidence and sets you up with invaluable interpersonal skills. In my opinion, every founder needs these traits.
It’s true that launching a business has never been easier than it is today. AI has made it possible to do everything from automating marketing to building products in record time. Even so, I still believe in the seminal advice offered by Paul Graham back in 2013: Do things that don’t scale. Especially when you’re out finding your first customers, the analog work of pounding the pavement can be the difference between your business taking off and falling flat.
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Don’t wait for customers to come to you
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