Zero to One in Enterprise Sales: Lessons from Building New Business Lines

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# Zero to One in Enterprise Sales: Lessons from Building New Business Lines

Building a business line from zero to one is different from scaling an established one. At Melento, I'm building the CLM business across new verticals. At DeepTek, I took India sales from nascent to 4.5X growth. Here's what I've learned.

The Zero Stage

Zero is not just a number — it's a state of mind. You have:

No reference customers

No proven playbook

No established processes

No certainty about product-market fit Everything must be built simultaneously: the product understanding, the sales motion, the customer success approach.

Finding the First Customers

Your first customers are special. They're not just buying your product — they're betting on your vision.

How to find them:

Network relentlessly: Your existing relationships are your first pipeline

Target innovators: Some buyers want to be first, not follow proven paths

Offer co-development: Make early customers partners in shaping the product

Price for learning: Revenue matters less than feedback at this stage

Vertical by Vertical

At Melento, we expanded CLM across FMCG, Defense, Auto-ancillaries, and Healthcare. Each vertical required:

Different value propositions: What matters to a defense contractor differs from FMCG

Different buying processes: Procurement cycles vary dramatically

Different success metrics: ROI calculations are industry-specific

Different competitive landscapes: Alternatives differ by vertical

The temptation to go horizontal too fast is strong. Resist it. Depth before breadth.

The 4.5X Playbook

At DeepTek, we grew India sales 4.5X. Here's what drove it:

1. Reference Customer Obsession

Make your early customers wildly successful. Their stories sell better than your pitch deck.

2. Demo > Deck

Healthcare AI buyers need to see the technology work. Live demonstrations closed deals that slides couldn't.

3. Clinical Champions

Find the radiologists and clinicians who believe in AI. They become internal advocates.

4. ROI Clarity

Healthcare buyers need clear return on investment. We developed ROI calculators that spoke their language.

Building the Sales Motion

Zero to one requires building the sales motion from scratch:

Discovery: What questions reveal real pain?

Qualification: Which prospects are actually ready to buy?

Demonstration: How do you show value quickly?

Proposal: What pricing and packaging works?

Close: What objections arise and how do you handle them?

Document everything. What works becomes your playbook.

When Zero Becomes One

You know you've reached "one" when:

New customers reference existing ones

Sales cycles become predictable

You can train new salespeople effectively

Revenue compounds rather than restarts each quarter The transition is gradual, then sudden. One day you realize you're no longer inventing — you're executing.

The Builder's Satisfaction

There's a unique satisfaction in building from zero. You can point to a business and say: "That didn't exist before. We built it."

That's what drives me to keep taking on zero-to-one challenges. The uncertainty is high, but the impact is proportionally rewarding.

Every business starts at zero. Someone has to build the first one.

Building Deep Tech in India: Challenges and Opportunities

Apurva skipped presentations and built real AI products.

Apurva Godbole was part of the January 2025 cohort at Curious PM, alongside 15 other talented participants.