Step 1
Find a problem worth solving.
You’ll identify market gaps, isolate painful unsolved problems, and learn how to run interviews that reveal desperation instead of polite, useless encouragement.
For founders with a great product and a silent market
Collin Stewart The Terrifying Art
The Terrifying Art
of Finding Customers
A brutally practical playbook for finding real demand, winning your first customers, and building a revenue engine before you burn money scaling the wrong thing.
“Essential reading for any founder navigating early-stage growth.”Mark Roberge, cofounder @ Stage 2 Capital, founding CRO @ HubSpot
Real traction > polite interest
The Hard Truth
You built something smart. The market still might not care.
74% of startups fail because they scale too early, before they’ve found something people genuinely want to pay for.
You’ve built something revolutionary.
So why won’t anyone buy it?
Because features, hires, and ad spend cannot rescue a weak product-market fit. They only make the feedback loop more expensive.
The book is a straight answer to that exact problem: how to find a painful enough problem, talk to the right people, and turn learning into revenue without forcing growth too soon.
Inside The Book
A 3-step path from “interesting idea” to repeatable revenue.
No hustle-culture theater. No “just post more” fluff. Just a disciplined method for validating demand, converting learning into customers, and building a growth system that doesn’t collapse under its own ambition.
Step 2
Transition from learning to selling.
Master the shift from customer development to revenue without becoming pushy, fake, or prematurely “salesy.” Learn how to spot real traction versus wishful thinking.
Step 3
Build a revenue engine.
Create the four revenue funnels that drive growth, hire salespeople who can replicate what works, and scale without losing the fit that made any of it possible.
About the author
Collin has lived the mistake.
Which is exactly why the advice lands.
Proof, Not Hype
The people who live in go-to-market believe this book matters.
These aren’t generic blurbs. They all point to the same thing: the book helps founders stop performing growth and start building it in the right order.
“Too many founders mistake early revenue for product-market fit and scale before they’re ready. This book gives founders a disciplined approach to proving demand, testing go-to-market fit, and knowing when to scale. Essential reading.”
Mark Roberge, cofounder @ Stage 2 Capital, founding CRO @ HubSpot“Collin lays out exactly how to find your first customers, build your revenue team, and avoid the traps that kill most startups.”
Lars Nilsson, CEO @ SalesSource, ex-VP @ Snowflake & Cloudera“Having strong product-market fit magnifies the impact of every sales, marketing, and customer success motion you have. This book nails it.”
Max Altschuler, founder and general partner @ GTMfund“If you're struggling to get your first customers, this book will change the way you think about outreach, feedback, and refining your pitch.”
Kris Rudeegraap, co-CEO @ Sendoso Who It’s For
Built for the people carrying the hardest early-stage questions.
If you’re still searching for signal, this is for you. If you’ve already found pull, it gives you the framework to scale it without breaking what made it work.
Founders chasing product-market fit
When “interesting product” feedback is abundant but committed buyers are not.
Early GTM leaders
When you need a cleaner bridge between customer learning, outreach, and repeatable pipeline.
First sales hires and advisors
When the founder needs help turning scattered traction into a system that can be taught and repeated.
Get The Book