Hey, {{first_name | Founder}}!
A founder messaged me recently, thrilled that his calendar was finally full.
After weeks of silence, he offered $100 gift cards for discovery calls. Suddenly, his target buyers were booking time. He thought he had found traction.
He was wrong. He had just bought a false positive.
When you offer prospects $100 to get on a discovery call, the incentive contaminates the signal. The cash changes why the person shows up in the first place.
You get the conversation, but you lose the demand test.
Paying someone to talk validates that they like being paid, not that they have a burning problem to solve.
You should absolutely use paid calls to learn. They are great for absorbing buyer language, understanding workflows, and hearing objections.
But learning is not commercial validation.
Validation requires friction. It means an unpaid interview with a consistent ICP. It means cold replies to a specific pain point. It means a signed pilot or a fake-door payment attempt.
Separate your learning calls from your demand tests. Until they take a step that costs them time or money, you are just buying their attention.
P.S. If you want to find the first channel that fits your startup, run your free Distribution Scan (I keep updating it).