For founders selling before the first sales hire
Founder-led sales starts with the people who already know you.
Before another cold campaign, find out which of your connections already buy what you sell. Upload your LinkedIn export, describe your buyer, and every row gets read against it, with the reason and a first line you could send.
No account, no card. Nothing connects to your LinkedIn login, and your file is deleted once your report is made. How your data is handled
16 worth contacting out of 416 shown
In founder-led sales, the first customers usually come from the founder's own network: former colleagues, past employers' clients and people met in the industry. Work it in order: describe the buyer precisely, find every connection who matches or can introduce you, rank them by fit, and write to the strongest personally before starting cold outreach.
Step by step
How to do it, whether or not you use Rolomine.
Job title, company size and industry. "Operations leaders" is too loose. "Heads of Operations at logistics companies with 100 to 1,000 staff" gives you something to check each connection against.
The file lists name, job title, employer and connection date for everyone. It's the list you have already built, most of which you have never looked at twice.
Some connections can buy, some can argue for you internally, and some know the buyer. Rolomine sorts every row by reading it against your description of the buyer.
Warm conversations teach you the objections and the wording faster than anything else. Cold campaigns work better once you know what the first ten said.
End every call by asking who else has the same problem. A founder's network grows fastest through the customers it already has.
Why your network comes before cold outreach
Early on, a founder has no brand, no case studies and no sales team, but usually has a decade of relationships in the industry they now sell into. The people in it already trust your judgement, which is the one thing a cold email can't supply.
Those conversations also teach you faster. People who know you are candid in a way a cold prospect never is, and what they say about price, objections and wording improves every campaign that follows.
A friend who is the wrong buyer is still the wrong buyer. The work is finding the overlap: people who both know you and sit in the seat that buys.
Mistakes founders make with a warm network
- Asking for a favour instead of an opinion. "Would you tell me whether this is a real problem?" gets a meeting. "Would you buy this?" gets a polite no.
- Only writing to close friends. The best early customers are often weaker ties: people you worked alongside years ago who now run the process you replace.
- Keeping no list. Without a ranked list, founders write to whoever comes to mind, and the strongest match stays buried somewhere in row 1,200.
What Rolomine does, and what it can't see
Rolomine reads your connections export against what you sell and who buys it, identifies each employer's size and industry, and ranks every connection. Each strong match comes with the reason it fits and an opening message written from how you know the person.
It works from job title, employer and connection date only. It never logs in to LinkedIn and never contacts anyone, so every message is still yours to send.
What you would type, and what comes back
Four questions, then one of these for every strong match.
Start the scan from this page and Customers is already chosen, so the questions are phrased for what you are looking for.
We replace manual vendor onboarding for mid-size logistics firms, a workflow tool that turns a three-week process into two days.Heads of Operations or VP Ops at logistics and freight companies with 100 to 1,000 staff.$8-20k a yearOwns supplier onboarding at a logistics firm in your size band; you met at a trade fair eleven years ago.
Procurement owns the vendor-onboarding process you replace, and at this size it still runs on spreadsheets and email. If she isn't the one who signs, she is the right person to name who does.
Example output with invented people. Every claim is derived from job title, employer size and connection date, nothing else.
Pricing
Scan free. Pay only if it found something.
The free scan reads your network and shows the counts and your five strongest matches, with one written up in full. If that isn’t worth acting on, stop there.
Full network report
$39 once
- ✓Every strong match, ranked and written up
- ✓A pursue-or-skip verdict for each goal you set
- ✓An opening message for each one
- ✓The full list as a CSV
Questions
What people ask about this.
What is founder-led sales?
It's the stage when the founder sells personally, before there's a sales team. It usually covers the first customers, while the founder is still learning what buyers care about and the pitch is still changing.
How do I find my first customers from my network?
Describe your buyer precisely, export your LinkedIn connections, and find everyone who matches or can introduce you. Rank them by fit and write to the strongest ten personally. Rolomine does the reading and ranking for every connection.
Should I start with cold outreach or my network?
Your network. The first warm conversations teach you the objections and the wording, which makes cold outreach much better when you get to it.
Does this work if I'm selling into a different industry from the one I worked in?
Less well. The value comes from the overlap between who you know and who buys. If your network sits in a different industry, the free scan shows that quickly and costs nothing.
Guides
Go deeper on the method.
Find out who you already know.
The scan is free and takes about two minutes once you have the file. If it turns up nothing worth contacting, that is worth knowing too.
Scan my network, free