What Your First 10 US Discovery Calls Should Teach You

A discovery call that does not convert to a sale is not a failure. It is signal. It tells you whether your ICP exists, whether US buyers recognise the problem you solve, who you are actually competing against, and what the buying process looks like on the ground. Ten of these calls, run consistently and reviewed together, will teach you more about the US market than six months of desk research.

Treat the first 10 as a research sprint, not a sales funnel

The instinct to close is strong. Suppress it. US buyers are sophisticated and time-poor. They will tolerate a research conversation from an APAC company that is genuine about learning. They will not tolerate a pitch disguised as curiosity. The moment a discovery call starts to feel like a demo setup, senior buyers disengage.

Your framing going in should be explicit: you are exploring whether the problem you solve is a priority for US companies in your target segment, and you would like their perspective. That framing is not a weakness, it is the reason they said yes to the meeting. Honour it. Run all 10 calls with the same question set. Do not improvise. You are aggregating signal across conversations, and that only works if you are asking roughly the same things each time.

The 5 things your first 10 calls should answer

1. Do they actually feel the pain? Describe the problem you solve, without mentioning your product, and watch how the buyer responds. If they say “yes, that is exactly what we deal with” and start telling you about it unprompted, you have a real problem. If they say “not really our biggest issue right now” more than three times in ten calls, that is not a fluke, it is a positioning or targeting problem. Listen for whether they use their own language to describe the pain, or echo yours back at you. Their language is what matters.

2. What are they doing about it today? This is your competitive intelligence question, and it is far more useful than any analyst report. Ask directly how they handle this today, and what tools or vendors they’re using. The answers fall into three categories: a named competitor you already know about, an internal workaround (a spreadsheet, a manual process), or nothing at all, which means your real competition is inertia, not a vendor. Each answer changes your positioning.

3. Who else is in the room? US B2B buying processes involve more stakeholders than most APAC founders expect. According to Gartner research, the average B2B buying group in 2025 involves 6 to 10 people, and buying committees have grown 38% larger since 2021. Ask every buyer who else would typically be involved in a decision like this. You are mapping who holds budget, who has technical veto, and who the internal champion would be.

4. What does “good” look like to them? Ask buyers to describe what a successful outcome would look like if this problem were solved. The answers are usually more specific than you expect. US buyers will tell you the metric they care about, the timeline they’re working to, and the internal narrative they need to tell their leadership. This is the foundation of your value proposition.

5. What would make them move? The question most founders forget to ask: what would need to be true for you to act on this in the next 90 days? This surfaces buying urgency, or the absence of it. If buyers consistently struggle to answer, your product may be solving a real problem that buyers do not feel compelled to fix right now. That is a very different challenge from a product that solves a problem nobody has.

What US buyers will tell you that surprises most APAC founders

US buyers will name your competitors openly and tell you exactly why they chose them, or why they’re considering switching. This candour is not common in all markets, use it. They’re also sceptical of unverified claims, having heard every vendor claim to be “the only solution.” What cuts through is specificity, a named customer, a concrete result, a reference they can call.

The buying committee is real. A founder-to-founder connection that would move a deal in Singapore may be just the beginning of a US sales process. And price transparency is expected. US buyers expect to understand roughly what something costs before they invest significant time in evaluation. Refusing to discuss pricing until late in the process reads as evasive, not strategic.

How to turn 10 calls into a market intelligence brief

After 10 calls, do not move on. Sit down and review them together. Look for patterns across three dimensions: language (what words did buyers use to describe the problem, which phrases came up repeatedly), competition (which names and workarounds came up), and buying process (how many stakeholders, what timeline, what objections repeated).

The output should be a one-page brief covering five things: confirmed ICP, the problem in buyers’ own words, the competitive landscape as buyers describe it, the buying committee structure, and the one or two objections you need to address before you can convert at scale. That brief is your US go-to-market foundation.

What to do when the calls reveal a problem

Not every set of 10 calls validates your assumptions. If buyers consistently fail to recognise the problem you describe, your framing needs to change before your product does, test different problem language across the next batch of calls. If buyers recognise the problem but cannot imagine acting on it in the next 90 days, you have a timing problem, ask what would need to change internally to make it a priority. If buyers name a competitor who dominates the space and they’re happy with them, that’s the hardest signal to receive, but receiving it after 10 calls is infinitely better than after 10 months of sales effort.

FAQ

How structured should each discovery call be? Have a consistent set of five to seven questions prepared before every call, but do not read from a script. If a buyer opens up about something unexpected, follow it, that is often where the most useful signal lives.

Should I record discovery calls? Yes, with the buyer’s permission. Recording lets you review the exact language buyers use rather than relying on notes taken in the moment. Tools like Otter.ai or Fathom transcribe calls automatically, making pattern analysis across 10 calls much faster.

What if buyers ask about pricing on the first call? Answer them. US buyers who ask about pricing early are testing whether you are willing to be transparent, not trying to disqualify you. Give a range and move on.

How many calls do I need before I can draw conclusions? Ten is the minimum for seeing patterns. Five calls will surface some signal but not enough to act on confidently.

What should I do between calls to improve them? After each call, spend 10 minutes writing down the three most useful things you heard, in the buyer’s words, not yours. Patterns become visible faster when you are actively looking for them.