Founder Stories: Getting Close to Your Prospects and Using Content to Build a High-Quality Sales Pipeline

Chad Sanderson, CEO and co-founder of Gable, has built a company that lets teams ship data like software—scanning it from the source, managing changes, and restoring trust in the data that drives decisions.

Background

My career didn’t start in tech at all—I actually studied writing and linguistics and began as a journalist. From there I moved into marketing roles in Southeast Asia, where I became fascinated with analytics. That curiosity led me to teach myself statistics, move into data science, and eventually data engineering and infrastructure.

So I’ve lived both sides of the brain: the first half of my career was about storytelling and brand building, and the second half became deeply technical. That combination—creative communication and data rigor—turned out to be crucial in founding Gable.

Finding the Problem

I joined Convoy from Microsoft with a specific goal: to identify a high-impact, unsolved problem inside a rapidly growing company—and then see if it existed elsewhere.

It didn’t take long to find one. Our data engineers were drowning in inefficiencies and constantly clashing with data scientists. Engineers said the scientists weren’t using the tools they’d built. The scientists said those tools didn’t solve their problems. It wasn’t just process friction—it was cultural and systemic.

Our mission became to figure out why these issues kept repeating. We wanted to isolate what was unique to Convoy and what was universal. Somewhere in there had to be a problem big enough, painful enough, and common enough to build a company around.

The Root Cause

At first, we thought data scientists simply needed to “own” the tables they created—to ensure quality for others who used them. But they pushed back. Why take ownership if the data feeding their tables wasn’t trustworthy in the first place?

So we went further upstream to the teams generating the data. Same story. Ownership took time, and leadership’s directive was always “move faster.” Everyone agreed a solution needed to exist—but no one wanted to own the problem.

That’s when it clicked. This wasn’t a Convoy quirk—it was an industry-wide failure of accountability in the data lifecycle. Fixing it would take new workflows, new incentives, and ultimately new technology.

Before leaving Convoy, I talked to over 2,000 people to validate that insight.

Talking to 2,000 People

I already had a large LinkedIn network of data professionals—analysts, engineers, and data science leaders. I began reaching out directly, not to sell anything, but to compare notes. My message was simple:

“We’re having this problem internally. How are you handling it, and what’s working for you?”

The response rate was astonishing—around 75–80%. People were desperate to talk about this issue. No one had ever asked them about it before, and everyone was struggling with it in silence.

All I asked for was 30 minutes of their time. I’d share what we were learning, and they’d share their experiences. Because it wasn’t a sales conversation, people were open and candid. That’s where the real learning came from.

Building Momentum Through Content

As I spoke with more people, I began posting regularly on LinkedIn—sharing observations, patterns, and insights about the problem. The same people I’d talked to started commenting, liking, and resharing my posts.

That’s when the feedback loop began: conversations led to posts; posts led to engagement; engagement led to more conversations. Over time, that cycle compounded.

When I leaned into content creation, those posts started reaching two to four million views per month. My network grew exponentially, and so did our credibility. We weren’t just talking about data quality—we were leading the conversation.

Validating Demand Before Building

At this stage, we still hadn’t written a single line of code. We wanted to see what people did with the advice and frameworks we shared.

If someone said, “Interesting idea,” and never followed up, that was a dead end. But when people said, “We need this—can we try building it together?”—that was real validation.

When companies like Disney and Airbnb were willing to put multiple engineers on the problem we were describing, we knew we’d found something that was not only critical but also budget-backed. That’s when we left Convoy to start Gable.

Turning the Audience Into a Pipeline

Once Gable was born, we kept nurturing that audience. Every post or comment created another touchpoint for people who were invested in solving this problem.

We built an automated workflow to message new followers:

“Thanks for connecting. Would you like to spend 15–20 minutes discussing how a solution like this might help your team?”

That system created a continuous stream of qualified conversations with data leaders who were already bought into the pain we were addressing. The engagement on those posts boosted visibility even more—creating a powerful flywheel effect.

We didn’t just have followers; we had an ecosystem of people who cared deeply about this problem and trusted us to help solve it.

Building Trust That Converts

Because of that trust, we had an unusually high-quality early pipeline. When we reconnected with people we’d spoken to months earlier, they were eager to pick up the phone again.

Some said, “When you have a product, let us know—we’ll buy it.” Others said, “We want to partner from day one.”

That’s how we landed a set of strong early customers—household names in tech and finance—that most startups would struggle to get near. The foundation wasn’t cold outreach; it was credibility built through months of genuine problem-solving and public sharing.

The Human Side of Discovery

If I could offer one piece of advice to founders beginning their founder-led sales journey, it would be this:

You don’t understand your customer after a 30-minute call. You understand them after months of sustained curiosity.

Empathy isn’t a thought exercise—it’s a practice. And you can’t build that empathy if you’re trying to sell during those early conversations. The moment you pitch, people evaluate you instead of confiding in you.

Your job early on isn’t to persuade; it’s to collect information. The founders who win are the ones who gather the best, most accurate information to act on.

Getting Close—Really Close—to Customers

Understanding customers also means getting out from behind your laptop.

Especially for technical founders, this part can feel uncomfortable—but you have to meet people in person. Have lunch. Sit in their office. Observe their day-to-day. Get to know them as individuals.

In the early days, we focused on Seattle-based companies so we could meet face-to-face. We spent hundreds of hours with people—meeting their managers, teammates, even grabbing drinks after work. Those experiences built trust that no Zoom call could replace.

Today, we’re working with one of the largest banks in the U.S., and our Chief Product Officer meets with their Champion four times a week. That level of closeness isn’t optional—it’s how you extract the insights needed to build something truly valuable.

Key Takeaways for Founders

1. Validate first, build later. Use curiosity, not a pitch, to uncover real problems.
2. Use content as leverage. Share what you’re learning in public—it multiplies reach and credibility.
3. Turn engagement into dialogue. Message people who interact with your content. Conversations are the real pipeline.
4. Stay close to customers. Nothing replaces face time for trust and insight.
5. Build long-term relationships, not quick wins. The people who learn from you early will often buy from you later.

Final Thought

Our success at Gable didn’t start with code—it started with conversations.

By combining relentless customer discovery with consistent public sharing, we built both an audience and a market before we built a product. That foundation of trust continues to drive everything we do.

This interview is adapted from the book  Founder-Led Sales Explained by Rav Dhaliwal and Ben Wright.