Getting Your First 'Yes'

When launching a business, even the smallest victory can feel like a pivotal milestone. We asked six entrepreneurs: How did you get your first big win?

- 

1/ Bait the hook.

“When my cofounder, Hari Karunanidni, and I started HackerRank—a platform to help companies hire developers— we created a fake résumé with perfect credentials and posted it on job boards. We got a slew of inbound calls from recruiters looking for this amazing candidate. Once we had them on the phone, we’d say, ‘Hey, I’m not that person, but people like this are all over the world, and you don’t need a résumé to find them.’ It was a risky strategy, but it worked: That’s how we landed one of our first enterprise customers.” —VIVEK RAVISANKAR, cofounder and CEO, HackerRank

2/ Follow up.