How to Get Your First 10 Customers in 2026 | Rajiv Ramanan (Spendflo) | First Take Ep. 1

How do you win your first 10 customers when your product is barely built and nobody knows your name? In the inaugural episode of First Take by JazzHQ, Krish sits down with Rajiv Ramanan, Co-founder of Spendflo, for an unscripted masterclass on founder-led sales, enterprise go-to-market motions, and crossing the messy 0-to-1 chasm. From navigating 20 years in tech—spanning Infosys, ISB, consulting, and scaling Freshworks through its IPO—to bootstrapping Spendflo's early sales with just an Excel sheet, Rajiv breaks down the exact frameworks first-time founders need today. What we cover in this episode: • The myth of the ready product: Why customers buy trust and outcomes, not features • Network-based selling: Leveraging 2nd-degree connections to get CFO-level meetings • Why Rajiv never offers free pilots (and how paid design partners de-risk your business) • Structuring the 30-minute executive discovery call: The 20-5-5 framework • The danger of hiring a VP of Sales too early ("delegating your failure point") • Building an authentic brand and pipeline through LinkedIn in the AI era Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction & The First-Time Founder Dilemma 02:11 - Welcome to JazzHQ First Take: Meet Rajiv Ramanan 03:36 - From IT Services to Enterprise Consulting & ISB 08:30 - The Freshworks Journey: Scaling SMB to IPO 11:08 - Moving from Seasoned Operator to Founder: The Reality Check 13:31 - What Spendflo Does: Evolution from Spend Management to AI Workforce 16:22 - How to Win Your First 10 Customers from Scratch 18:43 - "Validation Is When Money Changes Hands" 19:21 - The Network-Led Motion & Becoming Shameless in Sales 24:12 - Why You Should Never Offer Free Pilots 27:43 - Selling to the CFO: Defining ICP, Triggers, and Pitch Alignment 33:04 - The Perfect 30-Minute Discovery Call Framework 38:15 - Multi-Threading Stakeholders & Deal Cycles in Enterprise Sales 42:10 - "AIML": Amazing Individuals doing Manual Labor (Selling the Outcome) 44:31 - Why Founder-Led Sales Cannot Be Outsourced 48:02 - Building a Pipeline & Brand on LinkedIn 51:00 - Unpopular Opinion: Do Unscalable Things 53:14 - The Most Rewarding Part of Starting Up Connect with Us: Follow JazzHQ on LinkedIn:   / getjazzhq   Follow Krish Ramachandran on LinkedIn:   / aboutrk   Follow Rajiv Ramanan on LinkedIn:   / rajivramanan   Explore Spendflo:   / spendflo   Visit JazzHQ: https://www.jazzhq.ai/