The Jam: Sales Edition '26
WGTN

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Thursday afternoon for The Jam: Sales Edition. Around 150 founders and startup operators filled the room, and the audience involvement was strong throughout.

The Jam is Movac’s community tech series, run by Operating Partner Serge van Dam. The format stays the same each time: six speakers, ten minutes each to tell an honest story, then ten minutes of questions from the floor. This time the speakers were people who’ve sold Kiwi tech to the world, and the focus was on sales. Selling well looks different for every company, but founders, founding teams and growing businesses all need to be good at it. People rarely talk openly about the deals they lost or the customers they shouldn’t have chased. Hearing peers describe those mistakes, and what they changed as a result, gives the lessons a weight that a sales playbook can’t. The room leaves knowing each other better too.

The common threads

Each speaker’s story was different, but two lessons came up again and again. The first was that knowing your ideal customer is both critically important and hard to get right. Several speakers talked about the time and money lost selling to customers who were never a good fit, and about how their view of the right customer sharpened over time. They also talked about how hard it is to say no to revenue that sits outside it. The second was that key customers bring far more than revenue. The right early customers become advocates who open doors to others, give investors confidence (and in some cases become investors themselves), and shape the product by telling you what they need. Several speakers said those relationships had shaped their company as much as any hire or funding round.