They Sold a Point of View Before They Had a Product
Build the product, then go find customers. Get something in people's hands, collect feedback, iterate.
Christian Lund, Templafy
He Closed a Global Enterprise Deal With No Product
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Episode Summary
Templafy co-founder Christian Lund closed one of the world's biggest accounting firms as his first customer before the product existed, by selling domain expertise instead of software and refusing any pilot without agreed proof criteria. At the time the company was two founders and two engineers.
When that customer asked to start with ten people, Christian didn't say no. He said "yes, if." The conditions he attached ended up shaping how the customer evaluated every vendor in the category.
Christian Lund had spent years running an on-premise document business before he saw the cloud shift coming. Rather than retrofit the old product, he and his co-founder spun out Templafy and started over from scratch, with two engineers and no product to sell.
What they sold instead was a point of view. Christian identified roughly 800 people worldwide who he thought were mature enough to have the conversation, targeted them with specific messaging, and used those conversations to get in front of enterprises long before there was software to demo. Templafy raised its first funding round close to twelve months before the product existed.
That approach landed one of the Big Four accounting firms as the first customer. But the deal nearly went the way most enterprise deals go, with a small pilot for ten people and no defined outcome. Christian pushed back, not by refusing, but by attaching conditions: agree exactly what we are proving, and agree what happens if we prove it. When some prospects later opened the decision up to competing vendors, Templafy had effectively written the evaluation criteria.
Templafy now runs at eight figures in revenue with a couple of hundred people. Christian is putting the business through the same reset again for AI, rebuilding the technology foundation from scratch over two and a half years. He is candid that the messaging got ahead of the market, and that being eighty percent ahead instead of fifteen percent cost the company conversations it needed.
Key Insight
Templafy co-founder Christian Lund landed one of the Big Four accounting firms as his first customer before the product existed, by selling domain expertise rather than software and refusing any proof of concept without agreed success criteria and a defined rollout on the other side.
Key Ideas
- Sold thought leadership, not product, to reach enterprise buyers during the cloud shift
- Raised the first funding round close to 12 months before the product existed
- Targeted roughly 800 individually identified people with specific messaging rather than broad marketing
- Answered pilot requests with "yes, if" and fixed the proof criteria before agreeing
- Landed company-wide rather than team-by-team, treating each enterprise account as its own market
Key Lessons
- 🏢 Sell your point of view before you sell product: During a technology shift, large enterprises buy people who understand the transition. Templafy won a Big Four firm on domain expertise alone, then co-created the product with them.
- 🤝 Answer pilot requests with "yes, if" rather than no: Christian never refused a proof of concept. He attached conditions on proof criteria, budget, timeline, and the rollout that follows, and walked away when they were missing.
- 🎯 Define what you are proving before any trial starts: A POC to see whether someone likes the product proves nothing. Agreeing the exact pass conditions upfront turns a trial into a decision rather than an experiment.
- ⚡ Setting the criteria shapes the competition: Because Templafy defined the proof points first, prospects who later ran competitive evaluations often used Templafy's criteria to score every vendor in the process.
- 🧠 Disqualify rather than convince: Christian's team filters for buyers who already accept the market is changing. He argues sales has nothing to do with convincing people, and that defending buyers cost too much time to pursue.
- 🚀 Land wide, then go deep: Enterprise security and procurement cost the same for ten users or a hundred thousand, so Templafy pushed for company-wide rollouts first and expanded into specific team use cases afterwards.
- 📉 Being too far ahead is a real cost: Templafy's AI messaging ran ahead of what buyers wanted. Christian's rule is that you can be fifteen percent ahead of the market but not eighty, or you lose the conversation entirely.
Playbooks from This Episode
Stop Trying to Convince Buyers. Disqualify Them Instead.
Sales is about persuasion. A good rep can turn a skeptic around, handle the objection, and win the doubter over.
The "Yes, If" Move That Turns Enterprise Pilots Into Company-Wide Deals
A big enterprise dangles a pilot. Ten people, low risk, "let's see how it goes." Most founders grab it, because a logo is a logo.
You Can Be 15% Ahead of the Market, Not 80%
Getting the vision right and still losing, because you were too early. Christian Lund, co-founder of Templafy, made this exact mistake with AI, and he'd made a
Uphill Skiers and Downhill Skiers: Who to Hire Before and After a Shift
Most hiring advice treats "great people" as one thing. Christian Lund, co-founder of Templafy, splits them into two, using an analogy from skiing.
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Episode Q&A
How did Christian Lund land one of the Big Four accounting firms as Templafy's first customer before the product existed?
He sold domain expertise instead of software, using conversations about how the cloud shift would change document creation to get in front of enterprise buyers, then co-created the product with the customer.
Why did Templafy refuse to run a standard ten-person proof of concept?
Christian says a POC to find out whether a customer likes the product wastes both sides' time. Templafy only ran one when both parties agreed exactly what was being proved and what rollout followed if it worked.
What does Christian Lund mean by "we didn't say no, we said yes if"?
Rather than turning down a small pilot, Templafy attached conditions: clear proof criteria, a real budget, a timeline, and agreement on deal size and rollout if the criteria were met. Without those, they walked away.
How did setting proof criteria help Templafy win competitive enterprise deals?
When prospects later opened the decision to other vendors, they often wrote their evaluation criteria using the proof points Templafy had already defined, which put Templafy in a stronger position even in a competitive process.
Why does Christian Lund say every enterprise customer is its own market?
A single enterprise can have hundreds of thousands of employees across teams producing different documents, so landing company-wide creates an internal market Templafy can expand into without repeating the security and procurement process.
Why did Templafy land wall-to-wall instead of using land and expand?
Getting approval to roll out technology inside an enterprise requires the same security and procurement work whether it covers ten people or a hundred thousand, so Christian pushed for the widest possible rollout upfront and went deep afterwards.
How does Templafy use disqualification in its sales process?
Christian's team disqualifies prospects who are defending the current way of working rather than trying to convince them, on the principle that sales is not about convincing people and that convincing takes too long to be viable.
What mistake did Christian Lund make with Templafy's AI messaging?
Templafy pushed its AI thought leadership too far ahead of what buyers were asking for. Christian says you can be fifteen percent ahead of the market but not eighty percent, and being too early cost them conversations and opened the door to competitors.
What does Christian Lund mean by uphill and downhill skiers when hiring?
Early-stage companies need uphill skiers who find new paths, while mature companies hire downhill skiers who optimize a known route. A technology shift forces a mature business to hire uphill skiers again, which Christian says is hard once everything is built for speed.
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