Spotting time‑wasters checklist
A short discovery checklist says bail early when prospects show two or more red flags: vague problem severity, no economic buyer, no prior purchases, no timeline, or evasive budget talk. The checklist was offered as a practical way for founders and sellers to avoid wasting cycles on low‑probability opportunities. (x.com/Kazanjy)
A five-point sales checklist making the rounds among founders says to walk away fast when a prospect shows two or more buying red flags. Pete Kazanjy, a startup sales author and founder, posted the list on X as a screen for low-probability deals. (x.com) Kazanjy’s checklist flags five conditions: unclear problem severity, no identified economic buyer, no history of buying similar tools, no timeline, and evasive answers on budget. His rule of thumb is simple: if two or more show up in discovery, stop investing cycles. (x.com) Kazanjy is the author of *Founding Sales*, a handbook aimed at founders and first-time sales hires learning how to build an early business-to-business sales motion. His site describes founder-led sales as the work of discovering, refining, and scaling the first repeatable way to sell a startup’s product. (foundingsales.com) The checklist fits an old sales idea: qualify hard before you forecast. International Business Machines has long used BANT — budget, authority, need, and timeframe — as a formal way to document whether an opportunity is actually qualified. (public.dhe.ibm.com) Kazanjy’s five tests largely map to those same buying signals. Problem severity lines up with need, the economic buyer maps to authority and budget control, and timeline and budget remain direct checks on whether a deal can move. (public.dhe.ibm.com) The “economic buyer” point comes from another widely used framework, MEDDIC, which tells sellers to identify the person or department that controls the budget and purchasing authority. HubSpot’s 2025 guide says MEDDIC also forces reps to map the decision process and the prospect’s actual pain before spending heavily on a deal. (blog.hubspot.com) That matters most in early-stage software sales, where founders often mistake interest for intent. Kazanjy’s own book pitches itself to people who “don’t know much about B2B sales” and need a roadmap for the first few dozen customers, which is exactly where weak qualification can eat months. (foundingsales.com) The checklist is also narrower than a full qualification framework. It is not a scoring model or a forecast method; it is an early exit rule meant to keep founders from chasing prospects who cannot name a buyer, a budget, or a date. (x.com) In other words, the post packages decades-old sales discipline into a founder-friendly screen: if the pain is fuzzy and the purchase path is missing, move on. That is the whole point of qualification, whether you call it BANT, MEDDIC, or a five-line checklist. (public.dhe.ibm.com)
