Sedicii’s Customer Education Playbook: Selling Solutions to Problems Buyers Don’t Know They Have

Sedicii’s Customer Education Playbook: Selling Solutions to Problems Buyers Don’t Know They Have

The hardest sales conversation isn’t overcoming objections or competing on price. It’s convincing someone they have a problem they don’t know exists. In 2017, Rob Leslie and his team at Sedicii faced exactly this challenge: selling institutional-grade crypto custody to financial institutions that didn’t understand what crypto custody was, why it mattered, or why they should care.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Rob Leslie, Founder & CEO of Sedicii, explained how they approached this fundamental challenge. “We spent a lot of time educating the market on what custody is, why it matters, what the risks are,” Rob says. This wasn’t a marketing tactic—it was the foundation of their entire go-to-market strategy.

The Problem with Selling in Emerging Categories

When you’re building in an established market, buyers understand the category. They know they need CRM software or cloud storage or payroll systems. The sales conversation centers on why your solution is better than alternatives. You’re competing on features, price, service, brand.

Anchorage faced a different challenge entirely. Most institutions in 2017 were just beginning to explore digital assets. The concept of custody—holding and securing crypto on behalf of clients—was foreign to them. Even institutions that understood traditional custody for stocks and bonds didn’t immediately see how crypto custody was different or why they couldn’t just apply their existing frameworks.

“We basically had to go out and convince people that we were the right team to build this,” Rob explains. But before they could convince anyone they were the right team, they had to convince institutions they needed a team at all.

This created a chicken-and-egg problem. You can’t sell a solution until buyers understand the problem. But buyers won’t invest time understanding the problem unless they believe it matters. Breaking this cycle required a fundamentally different approach to sales.

Education as the Entry Point

Anchorage’s solution was to position themselves as educators first and vendors second. Rather than leading with product features or competitive differentiation, they led with market education. What is crypto custody? Why does it require specialized infrastructure? What are the risks if you get it wrong?

This educational approach served multiple purposes beyond just informing prospects. It established Anchorage as experts in a space where expertise was scarce. It built trust by providing value before asking for anything in return. And it created a shared language that made subsequent sales conversations more productive.

The education wasn’t superficial. Rob and his team invested significant time helping institutions understand not just what Anchorage did, but the entire landscape of digital asset infrastructure. They explained technical concepts like multi-signature security, key management, and the differences between hot and cold storage. They walked through regulatory considerations and compliance frameworks. They helped institutions think through risk management for a new asset class.

This level of education required patience. “We had this thesis early on that institutions were going to be the ones that were going to drive this industry forward,” Rob says. “And so we focused exclusively on institutions from day one.” That focus meant accepting that every deal would take time—not just because of long enterprise sales cycles, but because of the prerequisite education required.

Teaching Without Selling

The most effective part of Anchorage’s educational approach was that it didn’t feel like selling. Rob and his team weren’t trying to overcome objections or push prospects toward a decision. They were genuinely trying to help institutions understand a complex, emerging space.

This approach works because it flips the traditional sales dynamic. Instead of the seller pushing information at the buyer, the buyer is pulling information from the seller. Instead of the seller trying to qualify the buyer, the buyer is self-qualifying by investing time to learn.

It also helps with the fundamental credibility problem that every startup faces when selling to large institutions. “We basically had to go out and convince people that we were the right team to build this,” Rob explains. By demonstrating deep expertise through education, Anchorage built credibility that no pitch deck or demo could create.

The educational content wasn’t one-directional either. As Anchorage helped institutions understand crypto custody, they learned what questions institutions had, what concerns kept them up at night, and what features would matter most. “We were very customer-obsessed from the beginning,” Rob says. “We would basically build whatever our customers needed.”

This feedback loop between education and product development became one of Anchorage’s key advantages. They weren’t just teaching institutions about a generic vision of crypto custody—they were learning what institutional crypto custody needed to look like.

From Education to Sales

The transition from educator to vendor happened naturally because Anchorage had already established themselves as the expert. When institutions decided they needed crypto custody infrastructure, the team that had educated them was the obvious choice.

“Once you get a few customers, they start referring you to other customers,” Rob notes. But he immediately emphasizes the critical requirement: “You have to make sure you’re delivering a really good product and really good service.”

This referral engine was particularly powerful because it came with built-in education. When an existing customer referred a peer, they weren’t just vouching for Anchorage’s product—they were explaining the problem space from the perspective of someone who had already made the journey from skeptic to believer.

The educational approach also shaped how Anchorage thought about sales metrics. In traditional sales, you might measure conversion rates from lead to opportunity to close. But when education is a prerequisite, you need to think about conversion across a longer timeline. How many institutions engaging with educational content eventually become prospects? How long does it take from first educational touchpoint to first conversation about actually buying?

Rob doesn’t share specific metrics, but the strategy clearly worked. Anchorage grew from zero to serving major institutional clients, eventually becoming the first federally chartered crypto bank in the United States.

Scaling Education Without Losing Quality

As Anchorage grew, they faced the challenge every founder faces: how do you scale personal, high-quality interactions? “In the beginning, it was just us,” Rob says. “We were the salespeople, we were the product people, we were the customer support people.”

Building a sales team that could continue the educational approach required hiring people with deep expertise. “You need people who can talk to a CFO or a treasurer at a large institution and understand their problems,” Rob explains. This wasn’t just about hiring good salespeople—it was about hiring people who could be credible educators.

It also required developing methodology. “You have to have a way of qualifying leads, a way of moving them through the funnel, a way of closing deals,” Rob notes. But in Anchorage’s case, that methodology had to include the educational component. How do you standardize education while keeping it personalized and relevant?

Why This Approach Creates Lasting Advantage

The most underappreciated aspect of Anchorage’s educational strategy is how it created lasting competitive advantage. When you educate a market, you shape how that market thinks about the problem and the solution.

Institutions that learned about crypto custody from Anchorage learned it through Anchorage’s framework and mental models. They understood the risks Anchorage emphasized, the features Anchorage highlighted, the trade-offs Anchorage explained. This didn’t guarantee they would buy from Anchorage, but it meant competitors were playing on a field Anchorage had designed.

The educational investment also paid dividends as the market matured. “We always believed that regulation was coming and that the companies that were prepared for it were going to be the winners,” Rob says. When regulation did arrive, the institutions Anchorage had educated understood why compliance mattered and why Anchorage’s approach had been designed with regulation in mind.

For founders building in emerging categories, Anchorage’s playbook offers a clear lesson: when your buyers don’t understand the problem you’re solving, become their teacher first. Invest in education before sales. Build credibility through expertise. Help your market understand not just your product, but the entire problem space. The sales will follow—and when they do, you’ll have customers who truly understand what they’re buying and why it matters.