Most vendors pitching Leadways imagine they're pitching a district. They're not. Joseph Dalton-Stark is the founding principal of a microschool in Cupertino, CA, with roughly thirty students and families who work at Google and Apple down the road. The site licenses, the five-year rollouts, the "we work with 400 districts" pitches: none of it fits, and most reps don't bother to find out before they send.

This episode walks through how Joseph actually buys. He'll engage on LinkedIn if you sound like a human. He'll ignore a cold email unless it accidentally strikes gold. He doesn't pilot. He watches a short demo, makes the call, and moves on. He's allergic to the five-year vision pitch because his school is in year two and needs traction now. Most of his current vendors came through dinner-table referrals, not outbound. And when reps lean on s ...