Sales is Un-Outsourceable
The Most Important Job In The World
If you’re a technical founder, you may think you can just build the product and outsource sales once it’s ready. You’re right in some ways. If sales and marketing isn’t your forte, you should either be working with a consultant coach or hiring someone you can learn from. But it’s not as simple as building the product and hiring someone to get it off the ground. It’s a much more involved, integrated process that the whole team needs to be tightly focused on together.
The engineer or CTO founder who avoids the commercial side entirely and delegates it to the CEO causes more problems than the engineer who awkwardly tries to figure it out themselves.
I spoke with an Account Executive who had joined late in a startup’s lifecycle. They were in Palo Alto, so raising funds from friends and family to build a product in the HR space was no problem. Once they brought it to market, they didn’t get anywhere near the avalanche of traction they expected. All the people closest to them were depending on them to deliver. So they hired an Account Executive to find the elusive Product-Market Fit.
It didn’t work. Product-Market Fit isn’t something you hire someone to find after the fact. By the time they brought in outside help, the founders had already disconnected from the customer. The AE couldn’t bridge that gap.
Don’t be like these guys. Integrate the customer into your process on day one, and only consider outside investment when you’re sure there’s strong demand for what you’re building.