Road to $1M ARR day 12/60: tough day at the office...

the script for handling clients who don't respect you

Day 12 of the $1M ARR sprint.

Four prospect calls. Two proposals going out tomorrow. 2 “January starts” just moved to end-of-month follow up calls.

These 2 were leads from weeks ago who explicitly said January. But i had enough context from our first calls to know: their timing was arbitrary not strategic.

So i followed up with a simple reframe: “Given what you shared about [specific context], starting in December actually de-risks your Q1. Here’s why.”

Both said yes to reconvening end of month.

When prospects give you a timeline it’s never fixed. If you gathered real intel during discovery and can articulate why moving faster serves them, test it.

Temporality is sometimes just the default answer they gave before thinking it through.

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Remember that client who’s been playing stop-and-go for months? The one i mentioned earlier who wanted to downsize, then pause, then restart?

He did it again today.

We’re mid-month. Already deep into deliverables for a launch he commissioned. Now he wants to pause because “bandwidth issues.”

i gave him two options:

Option 1 → Let us finish the month. You’ve already involved us. If you want to postpone the launch after that, fine. That’s your call. But you don’t get to pull us mid-execution.

Option 2 → We pause now. You pay half the month. And i will never work with you again.

Not out of spite. Out of principle.

If i can’t trust you to honor a commitment, why would i invest more energy into this relationship?

Especially when everything we’re building for you could be built for a competitor who actually values partnership.

The workflows exist. The expertise exists. The credibility exists.

What doesn’t exist? Tolerance for people who treat collaboration like a light switch.

i said it calmly. No drama. Just: this is where the line is.

Oh and a contract wouldn’t have protected us in any ways. In early stage you don’t hire a lawyer for this…

But you can set boundaries. And you should.

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On the flip side, normalizing intensity is becoming weirdly natural.

A day like today would’ve stressed me out six months ago. Now? It’s just another Friday (except it’s monday and i am just starting the week lmfao).

Proposals to write. Difficult conversations to have. aaaaa the founder’s life

Also spent this morning writing posts for the week. One of them is the lead magnet i’ve been talking about. Second one is still in progress but close.

Building the machine while running it. It’s harrrrrrrd but i am loving it.

Tomorrow: two proposals out. lead magnet live. let’s see what moves.

ARR: $582K → Target: $1M | Days remaining: 48

See you tomorrow 👊

O.

PS: if you’re reading this and you’re that client, no hard feelings. just business.

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accidentally built a million ARR GTM agency by refusing to spray & pray. now racing to $1M just to prove cold emails gurus wrong.

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