Why executing even the greatest startup idea first requires sales (and beyond-superficial curiosity)

That sexy pitch alone might not get your startup its first customer, said Lee Walter, noting that lasting success relies heavily on jumping outside the vaunted “ideation” phase to truly question a venture’s value.

Walter’s revelation — born from a sales career that stretched from selling school lockers and coffee beans to commercial espresso machines on the global market (plus a stint in investment banking) — requires a startup leader to set aside their egos and listen to their inner salesman.

“Sales is the closest thing to entrepreneurship without necessarily starting your own business,” Walter, a mentor for UMKC’s Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, told Sam Kulikov, co-founder of Social Apex Media, for an ongoing UMKC Student Venture Series podcast from the Regnier Institute.

“You’re perpetually trying to figure out ‘How do I solve the problem that a customer has with the problem I’m representing?'” Walter continued.

The duo’s conversation highlighted the critical nature of staying curious.

“Alongside passion, curiosity tends to be one of the signifying elements of a great entrepreneur. That unending, curious mentality,” said Kulikov.

For Walter, the questions started early, he said, recalling an experience as a teenager selling high-end chocolate from a shop on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. On one busy day over a Valentine’s weekend, Walter sold more than $7,000 in chocolate — setting a store record for single day sales, and prompting his bosses to ask him how he did it.

“I just kept asking, ‘Do you have everything you need?'” Walter said he answered. “Even to this day, I’m like ‘wow.'”

Click here to watch more videos in this podcast series.

As his business knowledge grew deeper throughout his career, Walter realized the scope of an entrepreneur’s questioning needed to get equally complex to grow business beyond a one-off.

“Really focus down to say ‘What problem does this solve? And who’s the audience you want to reach?’” he said. “When you’re starting a business, lots of people tend to fall in love with the ideas, but rubber meets the road at execution.”

And execution means identifying your first customer, then the second, Walter told Kulikov, noting along the way an entrepreneur must identify customers’ shared traits and needs. 

“Then you have to get to 10,” he said of the customer acquisition process. “And then you have to go back — and this is the part that’s really hard — and say ‘Why did you buy this?'”

The questions really never end, Walter said, as companies determine a product’s fit.

“Somebody buying something as a favor is nice, but it doesn’t say you have a business,” he said. “I’m a firm believer that if I can solve your problem, you’ll pay me the value. But if our transactional relationship relies on a personal relationship, then I have to spend all my time making sure you’re not upset. And that’s not a good foundation for a business relationship.”

Watch the full podcast below, including Walter and Kulikov’s discussion on getting through the superficial levels of curiosity; finding a safe place to fail; grappling with the fluidity of a business’ identity; and how to get a 20-minute meeting with anyone in Kansas City.