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Can you sell it? Start selling what you have, however rough it is, because the point is not to sell, it is to learn

By Dinis Cruz · 2026-10-19 · article v1.1.0, 2 versions · newsroom v0.12.128 · startupssellingpricingfoundersgen-z-bookarticle

Abstract: One of the most important pieces of advice I can give any founder is to start selling, now, what you have. It does not matter how rough it is. Expect not to sell; that is not the point. The point is to learn, and you only learn by trying to sell. You cannot sell what you cannot ship, so selling makes you ship. The attempt tells you where you really are, and it starts the feedback loops that fix a hundred small problems. A customer who pays is the best signal you will get, and it is surprising how hard it is to get one, even when you give them the money to do it: with SG/Send I offered five pounds back for five pounds of credits, and people still had to choose to buy. So making it easy to pay you is not something you add at the end; it goes in early. Do not worry about your idea being copied; it is all execution, and if you are putting things up for sale you are already ahead of most people. Then make the customers profitable, and keep the price free to change: no subscriptions, no yearly contracts, something atomic, with a beginning, a middle and an end. My first question to any founder is the same: can you sell it?

In short

• Start selling what you have. Now, however rough it is.
• Expect not to sell. The point is not the sale; it is what you learn trying.
• Selling makes you ship. You cannot sell what you cannot ship.
• A payment is the best signal. And it is surprisingly hard to get one.
• Make it easy to pay you, early. It is not something you add at the end.
• Do not worry about being copied. It is all execution.
• Then make customers profitable. Atomic purchases, prices you can change every day, no subscriptions.
• My first question. Can you sell it?

Start selling what you have

One of the most important pieces of advice I can give any founder is to start selling. Start selling what you have right now. It does not matter how rough it is, how crude it is, or how much of it works. There should be some market for it, or you would not be trying, but that is all you need before you start: you go to the end of the journey and try to sell what you have.

Reid Hoffman put it well: "If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late" (his essay, 2017). Selling is the same rule, one step further.

You might be lucky. Somebody might pay for it. But expect not to sell, because that is not the point. The point is to learn, and the only way to learn it is to try to sell.

Why selling teaches you

Three things happen when you try to sell.

First, you ship. You cannot sell something you cannot ship, so the moment you decide to sell, everything that stands between the product and a stranger using it becomes your problem: the sign-up, the payment, the bit that only works on your machine.

Second, you find out where you really are. Not where you think the product is, or where the plan says it should be, but whether anyone will give you money for it today, and what they say when they do not.

Third, you start the feedback loops. All the small problems, and all the feedback, come from people trying to use and pay for the thing. That loop is the most important thing a young company has, and it does not start until you sell.

The best signal

It always amazes me. I meet people, sometimes people who already have users, and I say: sell it. And they look at me as if I had said something strange. But a payment is the signal that tells you that you have a product. Someone gave you money for it. It is that simple.

You would be surprised how hard it is to get. I have done the trick of giving people the money: with SG/Send, I offered a £5 Amazon voucher to anyone who bought £5 of credits. It worked: the payments went live on 1 March 2026, and on 2 March there were ten paying customers. But they still had to buy. They had to find the page, decide, and pay, and that is where the signal is.

And be careful what you read into it. Someone who pays more than it is worth, to help you, is not a market. SG/Send showed that too: three days after the first customers, the briefs said "Users buy credits, test once, and don't come back." That was the next lesson, and I only got it because I had sold first. Whether they come back is whether they miss it.

Make it easy to pay you

The bottom line is that you need to make it easy for people to pay you, and that is not something you add at the end. It goes in almost at the start, because you need to figure out how people will pay, and until they can, you are not really playing the game. Only when you have customers and users are you in it.

You can sell at a loss at first; that is fine. What matters is that you start to have customers.

Do not worry about being copied

Do not be paranoid that your idea will be copied, or that people will see what you are doing. This is all about execution. If you are putting things up for sale, you are already miles ahead of most people with ideas.

The best lessons I have learned came when I actually tried to ship something and sell it, and then iterated. It is not quite that simple, but it is close.

Then make them profitable

Once you have customers, the next step is to make them profitable. Here it connects to how I think people should pay for what they use: not subscriptions, but paying after the value, the experiment this site runs with its reading meter.

So a few rules for what you sell:

1. Keep the price free to change. You can change the price every day while you learn what it is worth. Do not lock yourself, or the customer, into a yearly or monthly contract.
2. Make it atomic. Something a person can buy on its own, without committing to the rest.
3. Give it a beginning, a middle and an end. The customer should know what they are buying, when they have got it, and that it is done.

All of these come from the same question: what, exactly, are you selling?

Can you sell it?

So my first question to any founder I meet is exactly that: can you sell it? If you have an idea, or anything you would like to build, the first thing to do is to put it up for sale, however rough it is. Only when you have customers are you really playing.

This is one half of a pair. The other is start a company: as soon as you have a bit of revenue, it needs somewhere to go.

What this does not claim

• Selling early is advice, not a law. Some products cannot be sold before they are safe to use; selling one is a different decision.
• Ten customers is not a market. SG/Send's ten paid, then mostly did not come back.
• Selling at a loss is for learning. It is a stage to get through, not a model.

Where this comes from

A voice memo from me on 19 October 2026, written for this newsroom and for the book, Generation ZX Developers (GenAI Startup Edition), where it belongs in the part on starting the company. SG/Send's dates and the 5 March brief are from from Send to sgit; the voucher offer is from the book's chapter Ship it, and see if they miss it. Reid Hoffman, If there aren't any typos in this essay, we launched too late!, LinkedIn, 2017. Related: paying after the value, the question is whether they miss it, start a company. Written up and checked by this site's agent, newsroom.writer; the editorial responsibility is mine.

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