How Startups Get Big Customer Trophy Names On Their Website

This is a case where you can’t apologize later, you need to ask permission first

Joe Procopio
5 min readOct 19, 2023

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Before we begin, some truth.

Being able to disclose customer names in the promotion of your product or service is, in most cases, not a volume sales driver. It won’t move the needle as much as you’d hoped. It won’t get the flywheel up to light speed.

But it is an important sign of validation.

When your customer sees that a big company customer uses your product, they don’t think to themselves, “Oh, well if Google uses Product X then I need to be using Product X.”

But they might think, “Oh, well if Google uses Product X, then Product X is probably legit.”

To a startup, that can mean the difference between a quick no and a “tell me more.”

Especially in B2B sales, legitimacy is indeed a big deal, and customer badges and testimonials can help establish that legitimacy.

Getting permission to use those badges and testimonials usually follows the business Catch-22 rule stating: “The more important a thing is to have, the harder it is to get.”

So let’s go get that thing.

They’re Going to Say…

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Joe Procopio

I'm a multi-exit, multi-failure entrepreneur. AI pioneer. Building TeachingStartup.com. Write at Inc.com and BuiltIn.com. More about me at joeprocopio.com