Validating ideas deeply before building: 9 months to $75M

Executive overview

Most founders skip rigorous validation and jump to building. Before quitting her job, Shensi Ding spent 6–9 months researching the integration problem, understanding why existing solutions failed, and proving demand. This deep preparation shaped every critical decision at Merge, from sales strategy to scaling teams.

Core insight: Research isn't a box to check—it's the foundation that makes execution possible.

Why existing solutions fail

• Deeply understand why competitors haven't succeeded, not just that they exist
• Ask: Why would you be better? How specifically? Without this, you can't execute
• Treat competitor research as product strategy, not market overview

Building the sales muscle early

• Founders should book back-to-back sales calls before hiring salespeople
• Each call teaches you objections, resonance points, and what actually moves customers
• By 10am–9pm packed schedules, you've A/B tested pitches and discovered the objections your team needs to answer
• Equip your first salesperson with confidence by going first—they enter already prepped

Scaling requires letting teams operate autonomously

• Billion-dollar companies succeed when each manager scales their team without heroic individual contributions
• Transformation from founders doing everything to managers leading teams is harder than it looks—this is the real scaling inflection
• Early stage feels natural because founders drive results; scaling feels unnatural because it requires delegation

Co-founder dynamics with complementary skills

• Choose co-founders for complementary skills plus deep foundation of trust (not just friendship)
• Working together as friends changes the friendship—it becomes deeper, more tied to the company's survival
• Shared history helps: Shensi and Gil knew each other since college and had worked together in student leadership
• Build a team culture that reflects the co-founder friendship—and scale that energy as you hire

Mental resilience as a founder

• Create peer relationships with other founders—especially those willing to share hard truths
• Everyone's founder journey is painful, and knowing that makes it easier
• Find people you can talk to about failing customers, bad numbers, and setbacks without shame
• Practice gratitude: you won't feel grateful now, but you'll look back fondly on this period