Investor List (vc/pe list part ii)

Hello Predictable Revenue community,

A huge thank you to everyone who pre-ordered the book last week—we hit 87 pre-sales! This number feels both amazing and small at the same time. My publisher told me I'd be unlikely to crack 100 given this is my first book. It launches October 28th and I want to figure out how to blow this number out of the water (see below for how).

Next week is our first Pre-Sale Club meetup (Friday August 8th @ 9:30am PT). Send me your receipt to get on the list. You can order here if you haven't already.

New Pre-Order Bonus → Investor List (with investments, board roles, and categories)

I've updated my VC & PE list, but this time, I went and looked at the investors themselves, found a list of their investments, boards they sit on, and categorized the types of investments they've made. There are ~25k investors all based in the USA. This one includes all the data from the last sheet PLUS: a list of their investments, sectors they invest in, companies they're a board member of, GTM motion preferred, investment themes, check size, lead preference, & investment stage.

Email me your receipt and I'll share the sheet with you. If you've already sent me your receipt, just reply back—I know who you are :)

The Fascinating (and Surprising) World of Book Publishing

I thought it'd be interesting to walk you through the book creation process. I've found it fascinating to learn and figured I'd share.

I'm working with a publisher (Page Two—they worked on Obviously Awesome and The Coaching Habit) and am hybrid publishing. This means that I paid them for help and retain more of the profits than the traditional route. My old cofounder Aaron self-published Predictable Revenue and used Wiley for From Impossible to Inevitable. Watching their experience, I knew I wanted a publisher and wanted to work with someone great. Page Two was recommended by another author and Trena, the founder, was extremely helpful before we even committed to working with them.

So what does a hybrid publisher actually do?

Think of Page Two as my COO—they take care of all the back office 'production' related to creating the book. I wrote the manuscript but they supplied the editors and process. They handle everything from after the manuscript was finished to when the paper hits stores. That involves editing (substantive & copy), book design (cover, fonts, text, visuals, etc.), book production (size, weight, printer, etc.), and distribution (selling the book to publishers like MacMillan and Raincoast).

I'm the Founder, CTO, & CMO and am responsible for creating the book, responding to edits, and making sure that people are aware of and actually buy it. After building so many tech products, it was a very freeing experience to be responsible for creating and selling a thing. If I hated the way something worked, it was only my fault and I could go in and change as much as I wanted without stomping on anyone else's flowers.

The Thing That Surprised Me Most

So even though Raincoast and MacMillan have projected to order 2,130 copies between the two of them, and I need to pay for them to be printed, those books aren't actually "sold" until someone walks into a store and buys them. So they're effectively leasing me shelf space. When someone buys the book, then I get paid.

Here's how I get paid:

• Print books: ~30% of retail price

• Ebooks: ~70% of retail price

• Bulk sales: 85% of net receipts

• Audiobooks: 25-40% depending on distribution

• Translation rights: 70% of advances/royalties

Just because 2,130 copies were 'ordered' doesn't mean the sale is closed. If none of them sell, they send them back and I get to pay for storage (yay). This was the most surprising detail to me. It makes sense from a publisher perspective—I'd probably do the same in their shoes. They're providing the infrastructure and want to derisk their model as much as possible. Derisking it also forces me to be responsible for marketing instead of them/the publisher. In some ways it's probably better this way because it's forced me to learn how to get the word out for my book, which is a net win for me, someone who likes to learn.

I had to decide how many books to print back in May when we only had 13 pre-orders (just me + my family). Based on their forecast we went with 3,000 books.

Another interesting point: that 2,130 number? It's just a forecast and will vary—could go up or down. One of the variables that influences that number is pre-orders. The publishers/retailers that buy books look at those numbers regularly and will adjust their order size. The other variables are the books my launch window is competing against for shelf space.

For the launch, you can do a digital launch or an in-store launch. I really wanted to see my book in a store (ego at play here) and decided on an in-store launch. That meant the book had to launch in either October or January. For business books, these are the two best windows to launch a book.

The 3-Year Journey: From Moleskine to Bookstore

I started this process in October of 2023, signed with Page Two in March of 2024, and the book is coming out October 2025. And that's on an accelerated schedule! I had to push hard to get it. Part of that was that the publishing process takes time and the windows need to be hit, and part of that was that Page Two was extremely busy and wanted to line me up with the right editor.

Here's the rough timeline:

September '22 - Started writing out ideas in a Moleskine, thinking about writing a book and trying to figure out what to write about. Initial idea was sequel to Predictable Revenue.

February '23 - Introduced to Trena @ Page Two, learned about the book publishing process. Was told earliest we could launch the book was January 2026. I said no, I'll self-publish.

September '23 - Decided to write the book, had been harassing Trena for advice every month since February. Started with sequel to PR + four funnels.

October '23 - Started working on manuscript, wrote 'the four funnels' section based on experience with clients implementing sales dev. Thought this + what's new in sales dev would be the whole book.

November '23 (wordcount: 6,227) - Shared the four funnels manuscript with friends/colleagues, realized something was missing. Also, I hated writing about sales development. Trena sent me "Write a Must-Read" and it convinced me to scrap the follow-up to PR book idea and write something I cared about. I didn't care about sales development anymore and needed a break.

December '23 (wordcount 4,084) - Removed follow-up to PR stuff, focusing on Four Funnels + some early founder strategy stuff. Trena had James, my future editor, read and share feedback. This + "Write a Must-Read" helped me find the topic I really cared about: helping founders find their first customers/build their first rev team.

December '23 (wordcount 2,504) - Killed more words thanks to James' feedback. Started taking every Friday "off" and spending all of it writing.

January '24 - Stopped writing the manuscript, read and processed "Write a Must-Read." Took many, many notes.

February '24 (wordcount 3,847) - Shared Chapter 1: "Why Product Market Fit Comes First." This was the first seed of what turned into the book. I really loved this topic. I had lived it, found it, and fucked it up. Then helped others try and figure it out but found founders didn't get it. I tried to find other books but couldn't find anything else that drew a line between customer development and early sales. That's what I really wanted to do. This helped me find the table of contents (roughly) and got me rolling in the right direction.

Between February-June - I continued writing every Friday. Some days I'd churn out a few paragraphs. Some days I'd pull out a full chapter. Some days I'd end up with one paragraph after 8 hours—those were hard days.

June '24 - Came up with book name "The Terrifying Art of Finding Customers." When I said it out loud for the first time, I felt it in my guts. They kinda twisted and felt uncomfortable. That was a good sign. Shared it with this list and some loved it, and some hated it—I thought that was perfect.

July '24 (wordcount 44k) - Sent my next draft to Trena—holy crap, it's working!

July '24 - Page Two confirmed an October '25 in-store launch was possible, signed with them. I had until September to finish the manuscript, target was 60k words knowing that 20-30% would get cut and I'd need to add more. But they wanted all the stories and ideas down on paper so they knew what they were working with.

October '24 (wordcount 54k) - Kicked off the engagement, felt woefully underprepared. Had to have the full manuscript submitted by the end of the month.

October '24 - Produced the book's positioning statement, started floating that with potential buying agents.

October '24 - Found the 'mostly final' table of contents and order, had to move some things and chop some others so the book delivered on the promise in the positioning statement.

November '24 - Found the 'whitewater passage' idea where you're both learning from potential customers and selling. Didn't love the name but I wanted to call it 'the middle' but Scott Belsky had already coined that term so we found something else.

November '24 - Preliminary sales meetings with publishers, sharing positioning statement, TOC, and author bio.

October-December '24 - Three rounds of substantive editing. (Substantive editing is where they look at structure, flow, arguments, and help you kill your darlings while keeping the good stuff.)

December '24 - Got the greenlight from Uber's legal team to use their name in the case study (they were a client and our MSA said we couldn't use their name).

January '25 - Substantive edits done, first draft ready. Shared with friends/colleagues for feedback.

January '25 - Started reaching out to folks re: endorsements. Mark Roberge was one of the first to read it, write back, and share an endorsement. I'll forever be grateful to him for this one.

February-March '25 - Copy editing, 4 or 5 rounds.

April '25 - Started thinking about marketing/pre-orders strategy, got busy at PR and didn't do much until July.

That's roughly where we're at today. I'm sure I've missed a few things but that’s the broad strokes.

Getting to 1,000 Pre-Orders

Next steps: I'd really like to get to 1,000 pre-orders. For context, Malcolm Gladwell got 3,000 for his last book. I'm going to produce 1-2 things for this list every month in order to bribe you to join the club and give Amazon $20.

Here's my question: What would be the most unreasonably helpful thing I could do to earn your $20 pre-order? Something that'd make spending $20 a complete no-brainer?

Hit reply and let me know.

Collin

PS - I used Clay.com to create the Investor list—it's a few steps and credits away from adding emails. Let me know if that'd be helpful. I can do it but it'll suck up my credit budget for the whole month of August. 

PPS - I’m still working on the audiobook, it’s edited, we’re just figuring out the processing. The last revisions still sound over-processed. Once that’s done, I’ll be sharing with those that raised their hands.