Does Selling to Family Count: Why Your Mother Is Not a Market.
Does selling to family count as your first sale? No, and you probably already knew that. Your mother is buying you, not your offer, so her money proves love rather than demand.
Why the answer to does selling to family count is no.
A sale to somebody who knows you is a signal about your relationship with them. It is not a signal about demand. Their money is real. However, their yes tells you almost nothing about whether a stranger would pay.
Even the author's own watch story has this flaw. He sold to classmates and a teacher who saw him every day. That was barely a step out of the sandbox.
Reasoning, not evidence.
Nobody has run a proper study on this question. Moreover, the people who say it loudest write blog posts rather than papers. So treat the point as reasoning rather than proof.
When family really is your only buyer.
Still, family sales are not useless. If your mother is genuinely the only person who will pay, that is real information about your offer. In fact, it is exactly the information you came for.
Test whether does selling to family count applies to you.
Write down who you plan to ask, and mark how close to home each person is.
Replace at least one name with someone one step further out, even if it feels harder.
From the book.
Nobody knows, and I have looked. The obvious answer is that exposure reduces fear, except the exposure research is genuinely mixed, with at least one study finding the fear coming back a few weeks later. What can be said is this. The fear stopped being the deciding factor for me a long time before it stopped being present.
I Want to Start a Business but I Don't Have Money, chapter 5: The first dollar
Questions about does selling to family count.
Does selling to family count as a first sale?
No. A relative is buying you, so their yes says little about demand for your offer.
Did the author's watch sales escape this problem?
Not fully. Classmates and a teacher who saw him daily were a captive audience, barely a step beyond the sandbox.
What if only family will pay?
Then treat that as a finding. It is real information about your offer, and it shows where to improve.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 5, “The first dollar”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Selling Stuff at School as a Kid: The Watch Lesson.
- 02 What Counts as a Real Sale: Money From a Stranger.
- 03 People Underestimate Compliance: How Many Say Yes.
- 04 Implementation Intentions: Turn a Wish Into Thursday.
- 05 Social Rejection Physical Pain: Why a No Hurts.
- 06 Does Selling to Family Count: Why Your Mother Is Not a Market.
- 07 Homemade Pickle Business: Four Kilograms to a Company.