Forward Deployed Market Research

I’m 5 weeks into my new job as founding AE at a startup. We’ve got 2 paying customers and a half-baked product that was supposed to be one thing, but now we’re testing lots of different things, as it feels like everyone has moved into the market for what we were originally selling.

So far, I’ve tested different messaging and pain points on operations leaders, sales leaders, marketing leaders, IT leaders, CEOs, founders, managing directors, and even HR leaders. Quite frankly, I feel lost.

I’ve started this blog post as a way to really just condense my thoughts at the end of each day. I’m testing so many different tools and workflows. I use Claude, I use Grok. I’m currently using HubSpot as a CRM, although I really hate it, and I use Nooks as a dialer, which is probably one of the best tools I’ve ever used as a salesperson.

My job title is founding AE, and I’m supposed to be in charge of generating meetings, opportunities, and eventually revenue. Right now, as the product changes constantly and we’re still really trying to figure out which direction to go, I’m basically forward-deployed market research, coined off the ever-growing need for forward-deployed engineers to help everyone else complete their agentic transformation.

Maybe one day, through all of my research efforts and hundreds of cold calls each week, we will figure out the product, that when I mention the pain on a phone to a prospect, they’re actually interested, and I don’t get asked to send it over on email.