ICP sharpening
Who the buyer is, what their pain points and jobs to be done are, and which questions tell a fit from a non-fit in the first reply.
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Validation before scale: a clear ICP for Sankore Labs
Sankore Labs connects Nigerian engineers with European teams whose vibe-coded products need a backend that holds up under real customers. A new proposition, founders from another industry, no network and no inbound. closed:in ran outbound as a discovery engine: segments, messages and tests that told the founders what stuck, what did not, and when to pivot.
NewProposition, no inbound yet
ICPSharpened before scaling
A/BMessages tested per segment
WeeklyDecisions with the founders
01The challenge
A new category, no network, no inbound
Leva Konaté and her co-founder Jonathan started Sankore Labs after meeting capable Nigerian developers and watching the rise of AI-assisted coding. Products built that way look finished fast, but the foundation underneath often is not. Sankore's engineers fix the backend so it does not break when customers arrive.
Leva came from a different industry, so the network that normally brings a first wave of customers was not there. The founders had a go-to-market plan, in Leva's words not at the level a professional operation runs on. No inbound, no demos being booked, no teams getting up to speed with their engineers.
02The approach
Outbound as a discovery engine
For a proposition this new, the first job of outbound is not volume. It is learning fast. closed:in set up the system together with the founders, close enough that questions about data, tools and who owns what were answered in the same week, and then used the campaigns to test the offer against real conversations.
What stood out to Leva was the communication: meetings set quickly, replies the same day, and a partner who asks whether the results meet the goal instead of telling the founders what they want to hear.
Message tests
Different messages to different segments, read per segment, so the founders could see which proposition clicked with whom.
Conversations over bookings
In the discovery stage the goal was a conversation with the potential customer, not a demo at any cost.
The honest read
A third party that puts the goal on the table: are we getting the results we aimed for, and if not, what do we change?
It brought about clarity in the early discovery phase. Definitely.
03What it changed
A decision in weeks instead of months
The response was not the response the founders had hoped for, and that was the point. The campaigns showed which elements of the offer helped toward product-market fit and which did not, early enough to act on. As Leva says: it made them decide whether to continue with the same proposition or not.
Without that read, the risk was months of money and time on a proposition that was a founder's baby rather than a customer's need. With it, Sankore pivoted and continued. Leva's advice to founders with a little go-to-market experience: it is not just setting up tools and starting a campaign. It is the ICP, the messages, the tests, and a strategic partner who thinks along.
ClarityOn ICP and messaging in the discovery phase
PivotInformed by real replies, not assumptions
WeeksTo a decision instead of months
PartnerWho asks whether the goal is met
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