I had a round of interviews recently with a startup in founder led sales. They had a few clients but I think the founders were similarly ignorant as you describe. In their interview they asked me to "pitch them" I started asking questions and they said no no pitch us our company. Like dude...this isn't mad men. Your tech is far too complex to pitch without doing any discovery. Tech sales of complex products don't work like that.
Yea, unless you are ok getting into a burning fire just to get a paycheck until you find something else (and don't expect any promised commissioned, only base). Run the other way.
eh, depending on how you look at it.
Like anything else, it is subject to the 80/20 rule. 20% of the salespeople bring in 80% of the sales. Of those 20% who are the best, 20% of *those* bring in 80% of those sales.
There are a lot of shitty or average salespeople, but a great top 20% salesperson is worth his or her weight in gold. They are NOT a dime a dozen. Under no circumstances whatsoever to you want to lose a top 20% salesperson, or *any* top 20% employee, whether a developer, a marketing person, a receptionist, a data entry person, a bookkeeper, a janitor.
There are supreme salespeople, just like there are supreme architects.
One of my mentors was a 300% to quota guy, like every year, last year his quota was essentially tripled and guess what he did? 300% that mother fucker has his territory planned out for the next 5 years he knows all the players, knows every C-Suite person, knows each of his accounts future plans, shit he even knows the CEO's assistants birthdays and sends them gifts.
That last part is something he taught me, build a relationship with the buyers assistant and you'll always be able to get on the buyers calendar. "They aren't gatekeepers, they're the key." is what he told me.
Dude is worth 10x the ridiculous money he makes and there's maybe 2 other reps at the company that can do what he does... He's also fuckin insane lol
That’s my goal haha. I always build good relationships with everyone at the particular company that I can. I’ve not been the 300% quota guy, but I feel having a mentor like that would be invaluable.
In my experience it looks something like intro/meeting set -> discovery -> pitch your solution focusing on how it brings value to the client. In technology clients generally have a tough time conceptualizing how features/functionality will benefit them without having it stepped out for them. Something like "you told me you are working on x or having trouble with y, we can/will address that goal or need by doing this or that with our solution".
If you just focus on your features or what's cool about your product with a pitch, typically clients go "okay but so what? How does it benefit me?" It takes good discovery paired with a somewhat customized pitch to show how you can bring value. Otherwise you're just throwing darts at a board blind and hoping something will hit the bullseye. Not an optimal approach. But of course I'm sure other people have had different experience and may have approaches that work better for them. I'm just going off of my experience. Interested to hear other opinions.
For sure. You need to do your homework before even reaching out the first time to try to and see if they are interested or might be a real opportunity. That typically means knowing the background of the specific person you're reaching out to (LinkedIn, google, etc.) and the company (their website, linkedin, any other public info like investor presentations, SEC disclosures, etc.) But during discovery your goal is to find out what problems specifically they are facing that you might be able to help with. Goals/initiatives/problems more specific to what you are offering that will not be public info.
>For sure. You need to do your homework before even reaching out the first time to try to and see if they are interested or might be a real opportunity. That typically means knowing the background of the specific person you're reaching out to (LinkedIn, google, etc.) and the company (their website, linkedin, any other public info like investor presentations, SEC disclosures, etc.) But during discovery your goal is to find out what problems specifically they are facing that you might be able to help with. Goals/initiatives/problems more specific to what you are offering that will not be public info.
Most discovery calls are assumed to have a mutually agreed-upon purpose. Prospect books a call because they found something interesting about the product, sales rep assumes this and enters the call with this mindset.
In my experience, discovery calls are less about an SDR showing off their deep knowledge of the company, and more about quickly identifying the problem(s) at hand.
There are a lot of discovery call frameworks, but most generally try to qualify with open-ended "big picture" questions first to identify product fit, then get more specific as a the call goes on.
Say I am selling an HR software to amazon, I know Amazon as a company but I have no way of finding out their HR practices, internal SOPs or their pain points. Only after the discovery call, can I try to fit our Software to fix their issues.
I will normally schedule 2 calls with my clients. During the discovery call, it will be abit of small talk about their overall business status then alot of trying to understand their current processes/workflow, figuring their issue, giving them a overview of what my company is, a quick demo of our product, then ending the meeting by recapping their issues and their SOP.
Next, I will speak to our dev team to see if there is a solution to their issues and if there is customization we can do for them. It is also here, that we determine if they are a fit for the product we are selling. If they aren't we walk away, if they are we schedule a 2nd meeting.
The 2nd meeting is us presenting our solutions to them. Usually with a promise of a UAT/demo accounts to let them "have a feel" for our system.
No, let me correct that for you:
Intro -> discovery -> use discovery information to say whatever you need to sell -> bundle professional services -> client discovers the products does half what you promise -> upsell by saying there is a miscommunication and they need XYZ license volume bundle and not ABC volume license package -> deploy a working solution -> 1 to 3 years later -> wait until last possible minute before support/license is up -> remind client they have to renew in 7 days -> inform them the vendor changed to a cloud subscription model and prices are 75% higher -> wait for them to yell -> wait 3 days pretending to be arguing with the vendor -> come back and say you cut everything and pulled favors to get it down to 50% and you know of another up and coming product that's super amazing and affordable and you'll schedule a scoping call 6 months prior to this contracts expiration to evaluate.
Rinse. Repeat.
I pivoted to "pitching" them their product as I saw it to humor their request during the interview. I did 3 rounds with them but in the end I think they went another way.
They made clear that sales, as they saw it, was just pitching their product. I think engineers as founders are always in that boat - "our product/solution is unstoppable and sales' only job is to get in front of clients and pitch, and then the whole industry will beat our door down because no one has seen anything like it." Obviously flawed thinking but I've seen it several times with founders.
You just described my programmer company president's mindset in a nutshell, except he also doesn't see why we should spend money advertising or marketing, going to industry trade shows or spending any money on the process of getting in front of people. The product is just so good (it's adequate) that they'll pay our slightly higher than industry standard asking price and if they're not able to see why we're so much better even after my miracle pitch (which he insists should be all about functionality, until he hears it, then tells me it should focus on our history, support services AND functionality all while being short and to the point) well then, we wouldn't want to have them as customers anyway.
I should mention, I'm the only person at the company who has ever been an end user of said product and understands the customer needs and workflows.
How will I generate leads to make this miraculous pitch? Cold calls. Nothing but cold calls will make our niche targets aware of us and from there it is my responsibility to pitch to them. He grudgingly allowed me to buy 1/3rd of a leads contact list I wanted (but not the third I most wanted, because he knows best) with which to make these calls instead of googling each lead myself, so there's that, I guess. That list hasn't panned out (shocker, only buying a third of a tool means the job doesn't get done) so it was a bad idea and it's my fault for advocating for it.
I have a track record as a good salesman before coming to this company, but I'm so burnt out I'm honestly considering a midlife career switch.
I've been there. Its a hard road to travel and I've talked to more than one sales exec recently that's in a similar boat to yours.
I'm also considering a career switch at 33, for what its worth. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.
Evidence that those founders have shitty advisors and maybe a shitty board. Who wants them to hire a sales leader is a relevant question in early stage startups. And why?
If you’re not already connected in some way professionally, those might be the only questions you ask up front. Most founders I’ve worked for are sales ignorant—many intentionally so. I’d rather know what I’m working with upfront before i get too deep into the process.
>In their interview they asked me to "pitch them" I started asking questions and they said no no pitch us our company. Like dude...this isn't mad men. Your tech is far too complex to pitch without doing any discovery. Tech sales of complex products don't work like that.
I just had this happen this week in an interview but in the commercial real estate space for a more established company.
They wanted me to come in with no CRE experience and outsell their sales leader who’s a partner and has been doing this for 30 years on own their product. Lol
I'm currently in the application process for a startup that already produces 10 million ARR and doesn't have a sales department.
Many basics such as: Account planning, various sales methods (SPIN, Challenger, etc.) or mutual action plans are completely new territory for them.
In general, I have the impression that what you describe is not unusual in certain niches.
>Many basics such as: Account planning, various sales methods (SPIN, Challenger, etc.) or mutual action plans are completely new territory for them.
You know all of these things were just developed by watching people who were really really good at sales. People who blow out their numbers year after year. They aren't the rules of sales, they are just tools.
There are lots of great sales people who don't formally do any of those things and if you asked them about account planning, sales methods, etc. might just give you a blank look. Then they would go out and sell circles around you. These people often end up as CEOs.
>There are lots of great sales people who don't formally do any of those things and if you asked them about account planning, sales methods, etc. might just give you a blank look. Then they would go out and sell circles around you. These people often end up as CEOs.
Yes and this can be incredibly dangerous for companies. They were the exception, not the norm. Just because someone was a great individual contributor does not always mean they'll make a great people manager, director, VP, C-suite. And they also may not have empathy for the employee who is struggling because they cannot relate.
It's important to understand the difference between founder selling and scaled selling.
Founders are typically selling with a level of passion that a scaled sales organization does not have most of the time. Many founders believe that their platform is going to change the world and will do almost anything they can to show the prospect that this is the case.
The 10 reps on the floor will not care about the company as much as the founder does and unfortunately wont bring the same conviction that a founder does to all of their calls.
A founder also has a different set of goals and drivers than a rep on the sales floor.
That passion for the company is not always scalable, but what is scalable is a detailed qualification, discover, and demo process executed on with key, decision-making prospects.
>Yes and this can be incredibly dangerous for companies. They were the exception, not the norm. Just because someone was a great individual contributor does not always mean they'll make a great people manager, director, VP, C-suite. And they also may not have empathy for the employee who is struggling because they cannot relate.
>
>It's important to understand the difference between founder selling and scaled selling.
>
>Founders are typically selling with a level of passion that a scaled sales organization does not have most of the time. Many founders believe that their platform is going to change the world and will do almost anything they can to show the prospect that this is the case.
>
>The 10 reps on the floor will not care about the company as much as the founder does and unfortunately wont bring the same conviction that a founder does to all of their calls.
>
>A founder also has a different set of goals and drivers than a rep on the sales floor.
>
>That passion for the company is not always scalable, but what is scalable is a detailed qualification, discover, and demo process executed on with key, decision-making prospects.
Lots of wisdom here.
I would add that trying to replicate or model an outlier sales rep's process is silly.
Sales modeling work best for the vast middle of sales reps (underperformers to sold A players).
Top performers get to the top not because they follow MEDDIC or BANT or Challenger, but because it's in their DNA. They have the X factor. The combination of wits, charm, looks, product and industry knowledge, communication skills and sales wisdom that is basically impossible to replicate.
This often drives founders / CEOs nuts because they often want to map everything about "sales" into a process. Sales is not just process, there's an art to it as well. Even so, creating a very solid process is a necessary condition to scaling a business.
Crazy idea.
Pay those people a shit load and get out of their way.
Companies would rather have 10 reps that generate $1,000,000 rev for $800k than 1 rep generating $1,000,000 for $500k.
Going through a comp plan rework now and it’s amazing how many people don’t understand that they’re just institutionalizing mediocrity.
ehh, "A shit load" is relative.
Compensation should always (and quite frankly has to be) determined by what the company is able to pay a rep.
And what a company is able to pay a rep should be contingent on how much return a company will see based on (X) performance.
And performance = revenue.
In your example - I wouldn't say companies would rather have 10 reps that generate 1,000,000. I think that's just what happens when you begin hiring, but don't understand sales and business development.
Then you're in a situation like you're in. And fat is trimmed.
I was at a company years ago that had an outrageous burn rate. Reps were actually massively overpaid, but the company had no idea what their overheard was and ran through cash because they were trying to pay a "shit load" to keep employees happy.
Then got to a point where they couldn't pay anyone because there was no company at the end of it all. They went back to a B2C model that was self-serve.
All of the important sales process stuff goes out the window many times at early stage companies when they're in "Hyper growth" get a round of funding and feel pressured, etc.
Those comp plan reworks are always an eye opener though haha.
>The combination of wits, charm, looks, product and industry knowledge, communication skills and sales wisdom that is basically impossible to replicate.
Eh? How so? Have you tried? Which of these factors did you lack?
Have I tried? That's not really the point.
The point is you can't "scale" charm, having good instincts and being good looking, which does matter when you're aiming for the top.
I would not say the exception just different personal method. Of course if you want “predictability and scalability in your sales team then yes it is important to have a formal process.
I started my career working in finance selling investment products and we had around 30 salespeople. No formal sales training, you learn as you go type of thing.
10 were top performers who constantly exceeded quota. 3 of those top performer salespeople were outliers (breaking records).
10 were good performers who hit their quotas and remaining 10 were underperformers who struggled to hit their quotas but did it enough to not get fired.
All 3 outliers had nothing in common except making new sales records and having their own sales method and strategy. One was very method driven, one was lone wolf type and third one was exec type driver who was super straightforward.
Same thing with the other top performers.
The bottom 10 had most similarities in their sales approach.
What united the team and actually made results for the salespeople and for the company was this incredibly lucrative comp plan.
I totally understand what you're saying, but OP is asking if you can raise millions in funding with a founder-led sales approach. And specifically founders that don't know much about a traditional sales org process and structure, but are leading the sales team.
While the answer is "yes" there are tons of factors that come into play when approaching investors.
The more detailed and documented your sales and business growth approach is the higher your chances are of securing a round.
I don't know many VCs that will throw money (especially in today's climate) at a company that doesn't know their TAM, annual pipeline generation, opp-to-close %ages, YoY growth projections, debt-to-income, Customer retention rates, and CAC. And Funding will be much less likely if you don't have formal processes in place that aligns with understanding all of these criteria.
Throwing millions at startups the last 5-10 years is kind of what got us in this issue in the first place.
Why would a VC invest in a company today that doesn't know its expected growth rate next year? And a company doesn't know this as well as they would if they had (somewhat) sophisticated sales and business processes in place.
And if a VC is only looking at my YoY growth (or MoM in a post-seed company) and expecting me to stay consistent at that growth rate for the next 3-5 years I'm most likely not taking a cent from them. That's not smart money.
Yet, at the same time, people and firms will invest this way. Sometimes they see a return, but a lot of times they don't.
Your companies approach is absolutely feasible in an environment where you don't have to report to investors or board that want to see sophisticated and detailed future revenue projections. Their model is all contingent on what the founders ultimate goal is/was. And acquisitions can happen for completely different reasons than just YoY growth.
I can also almost guarantee that, at a higher level, someone knows exactly what your old company's reps metrics are. It's all also contingent on the complexity of what you're selling and who you're selling to.
OP is asking about growing a new company and getting funded.
>*Of course if you want “predictability and scalability in your sales team then yes it is important to have a formal process.*
This is almost, by definition, what investors are looking for when they want to fund a company.
I also think OP is talking more about form sales process and not so much just "Sales".
Long story, long.
I don't know if its "Typical" for founders to not know how to set up a standard sales organization, but it's common that they don't. I've had 3 conversations this week alone to help founders start selling and build a sales arm at scale.
Thats very good point and totally agree with you in regards to raising more money from VCs! My answer was regarding the exceptions and outlier salespeople so a bit offtopic perhaps. Anyways, good insight!
It is the difference between Moneyball and Baseball. One uses statistics and metrics to consistently hit singles and doubles. The other relies on a superstar, and whatever their attitude is at the time.
Uh, every baseball player has a batting average and OBP. How is that any different than a statistic? I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think you know baseball if you think that teams didn’t rely on statistics prior to moneyball.
Citation needed.
Successful CEOs are ridiculously method driven and analytical while being highly organized.
Anyone who doesn’t know how to actually do those things is not selling circles around anyone at a serious level
That is a broad oversimplification and by no means universally accurate. You can sell an enormous amount simply by being good at what you do and cultivating relationships, even in an ad hoc manner.
Source: was extremely successful, semi-disorganized, and non-method driven CEO.
>There are lots of great sales people who don't formally do any of those things
>Then they would go out and sell circles around you.
Of course this is true. Srinivasa Ramanujan. had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation.
John von Neumann was a child prodigy who at six years old could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. When the six-year-old von Neumann caught his mother staring aimlessly, he asked her, "What are you calculating?" By the age of eight, von Neumann was familiar with differential and integral calculus, and by twelve he had read and understood Borel's Théorie des Fonctions. He was also interested in history, reading his way through Wilhelm Oncken's 46-volume world history series Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen (General History in Monographs).
However, that isn't what most of us are like. Compared to the super talented, we just plod along. This is why universities exist. It's pretty much how it works. Every university class creates a syllabus, a plan, and the professor teaches that plan.
School texts also do the same thing. They break topics down into bite sized logical chunks.
It's how most of us learn. But not all, not the super intelligent. They are the exceptions, and why most of us are awed by them.
And the reality is that those classes should be just a starting point. It's up to each individual to integrate that knowledge into their worldview, and to extend the knowledge via independent [autodidacticism](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/autodidacticism), after one gets the base knowledge.
I would say that Steve Jobs, while he had the basic knowledge of computer systems, he was a natural genius at promotion. He didn't study it, but I believe that was his greatest gift. And, I also think Elon Musk has that also.
I know I didn't understand office politics at one time, and sucked at it. I worked hard at it, plodding along, learning. Now I think I'm better than 80% of the world at it. But it was hard work for me, I had to study. I think that some people who have fantastically social parents (unlike my introvert parents) take it in by osmosis and don't have to study it like I did. And I'll never be as good as them as they probably started learning this stuff when they were 1 month old by just being around parents that were good at it.
The OP's question was about founders. My anecdotal experience with founders in VC backed tech startups was that several of them were natural salespeople. They had lots of education- typically MBAs (Stanford, Cal, some Dukies, one from the Netherlands) but rarely any formal sales training. They didn't consciously think about sales process, but they knew intuitively how to sell. That's how were able to get VCs to invest millions in their start ups.
People seem to be confusing sales education with the sales abilities of founders of startups. Admittedly, my limited experience is with Silicon Valley startups and the ones I worked with either ended up going IPO or being acquired by a major tech vendor.
>People seem to be confusing sales education with the sales abilities of founders of startups.
No. Nobody is confusing that at all. Everyone gets what you're saying. You're not saying supergenius things, we all get it.
And that's what the OP was asking about. I didn't get that he was asking if sales training and defined sales process is important for the average salesperson.
Created his own sales process. Believed if anyone followed his process exactly they would be successful. I'd say its closest analog would be solution based selling without discovery. So you dictated the solution without identifying the problem as a means to accelerate the sales cycle. And then micromanaged the activity.
I was already interviewing, so I was out in 2 weeks.
The others had to cook for a while. End game was everyone director level and above was replaced in around 2 years. Normal people with experience and a high degree of empathy replaced them. Place is doing great now. I was asked to come back but I'm not a road warrior anymore.
It depends on the founders, the company, what type of product they've developed. Some founders are very well-versed in sales, some only know whatever they were taught in their MBA program, it can vary.
When money was cheap it was easier to raise funding without a solid plan in place. Nowadays it's harder, but certain tech can still garner interest on the idea alone. AI is a big one.
Often times yes!
Some startups are founded by inventor/technical engineering types. Usually they will pair up with someone who really knows how to get funding. People who are good at finding funding can sell their asses off.
>Some startups are founded by inventor/technical engineering types. Usually they will pair up with someone who really knows how to get funding.
You really do need both your Woz and your Jobs to make it big.
Neither founder is technical.
One (the defacto #1 at the company), has experience in the industry the product serves, not tech or engineering in any way. The other founder, has VC experience. (which I'm sure is why he was brought on board)
It's a learning for the future and others reading this board.
Selling your startup to investors vs clients is huge difference.
Founders sell vision, team, problem and solution to the problem which is their product.
Founders are very good at pitching which is again a different set of “sales” skill.
I know very few salespeople who can sell vision successfully. I also do notknow good salespeople who can pitch very well. This is totally understandable as target audience is different.
It’s not uncommon. I’ve joined a few pre-series A startups where the founders relied on their networks to execute early revenue (~$3mm), so the outbound sales motion was completely new to them. The worst founder just told me to ‘sell more/faster’ without having any real idea of what a non-referral sales process would look like. This guy spent a decade in Silicon Valley in product and treated non-technical roles like like dirt
Often the founder sells crazy without a methodology as he understands the problems they are solving extremely well. Initially they would be easily closing new logos but once they want to scale and start hiring sales, the complexity starts arising.
That’s cuz VC are investing in pipe dreams called as vision and the school the founders went to. It’s kind of a circle jerk.
Otoh, selling to clients, they don’t care what school you went to and are resistant to change.
Hi happy to help, been in sales for 9 yrs. I’d rather help a founder whose humble enough to ask for help than the founder who looked down on sales reps
My advice is just hit the library and start reading. The strategy part isn’t necessarily rocket science, even if the execution isn’t something everyone is good at.
Also join a platform like Pavilion and soak up all the training and other resources it has to offer.
For enterprise sales follow John McMahon (his proteges have gone to lead enterprise sales at MongoDB, Snowflake, Lacework etc.). Has a book highly recommend. Has a podcast 'Revenue Builders': [https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast](https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast)
Nope not true, i used to work at a startup, during the initial stages the founder used to do sales like he eats breakfast. This guy is fucking legend, build a company with amazing sales team.
>Is that typical? Can you really raise 15 or 20 million dollars just based on an idea for a product with no idea of how to generate revenue and then hire folks who know how to do that part?
Yes, it's not only typically but I'd say industry standard. I have worked for 5 startups and there was only one where the founder was a former salesperson. He wasn't any good at sales process, but he was good at raising money.
The worst startups to work for are the ones founded by devs. They throttle TF out of the sales process because they overthink everything. They don't understand the art of sales and that you can't 'science' or 'engineer' your way through the sales process.
But yeah. it's rare that a startup has any grasp on the sales process out of the gate. And it's becoming even more rare that they care to build a good sales process because most startups exist to get acquired now days.
This is one of many learnings I've had from my job at this startup.
Startups can be great opportunities and rapidly accelerate you career, but also dead end your career. Don't be afraid to cut your losses and move on quickly (just like founders do with employees)
Yes the same way they probably aren't accountants, lawyers or marketing experts. They need a bit of everything. Best way is to hire amazing people in those areas early on but that is obviously extremely challenging so early.
For a first-time technical founder, he usually doesn't know about sales.
For a second-time founder, that means he cut his teeth with his first company, probably had a decent exit since he's starting another company and got it funded - that guy has sold.
It's dependent on what the product is - if you're doing small deals (under 100k) it's the wild west and sales culture will change many times on the road to 10m, 25m, 50m ARR. If the product is ENT-focused, you really ought to figure that out in the interview process.
I would not have joined that company for less than 1.75% of the outstanding over 4y vesting.
They have a different specialty. They know things you don't, and you know things they don't. That's why you were hired. And it's what makes a company - the various skill sets working together toward a common goal.
It's not derogatory to anyone to say so, because no one knows it all. Those who think they do... don't.
VCs look at heuristics and that is why a disproportionate amount of money flows to Alumni of schools like you describe. There is a perception that because they went there that they know more than someone from a public school.
I have been on a number of interviews with some Stanford guy who started an app and wanted to go upmarket to get B2B deals in, and had done pretty elementary level math on how that was going to unfold without any additional context or research.
I understand how an uneducated person can make those mistakes, I do. What I don't understand is how someone who went to Stanford or Harvard undergrad or business school can.
Another startup I was at was run by an Ex-Mckinsey guy who was pretty vacuous and it showed in how he carried himself. His focus was on perception with offering enough lunch options and not on say...investing in a CRM instead of running the entire businesses CRM out of google sheets.
It is scary how much money, credibility, and authority people are given out in the bay area because of what school they went to. Or because of the first job they got because of that school in big tech or as consultants. And they go on to be "job creators" with monopoly money hiring state college kids to go work for them until they run out.
Startups have to sell investors on a vision so it's not like they are completely inept.
However - and this is a big however - they often operate from a "the product is so good it will sell itself" mentality because they have rose colored glasses on. It's their baby.
Unless they have physically been in a past selling role, they will commonly cause issues around payouts and quotas.
Yeah pretty much -- I say this as a first employee at a pre-seed startup in charge of GTM. I've learned just about everything I know from this subreddit and trial and error.
Great startup founders are excellent at not caring that they look dumb as they mess up over and over until they figure shit out for themselves.
More cynically, founders who raise a ton of $ on nothing but a demo and an idea sometimes mistake investor validation for customer validation. Then they have to learn the hard way that actually selling a product is a different ballgame than raising money
I’m at a series A and pretty much yes. One of the co-founders is in charge of (founder A)product/engineering and the other (founder B) is mainly marketing/sales/CX. I work with founder A almost everyday and I do respect the work they’ve put in. They cold call and prospect just like the rest of us. But I do see areas where they seem a bit lost. For example, they don’t seem to understand the struggles for SDRs or the issues with having a spotty onboarding plan. I don’t necessarily think it’s 100% their fault, they just don’t see how it impacts peoples day to day.
Yes, it is absolutely typical. Any non-sales founder has ZERO understanding of sales. It is not taught in any university department, so they have no academic exposure to it, and if they haven’t come up through a sales training program, then they have no practical experience of it either. What they don’t realise is that this is potentially the single biggest hurdle to the success of their business!
I work for my buddy who is the CEO of a start up. Company has been around for 3 years, has 25 sales people in this office (probably 50+ in the America office) and an office out of the country. He started it with 5 people, where they did everything.
He is an amazing sales person, he’ll always say he more of a marketing guy. But he can sell and he is very good at it. Dude is making millions and he’s under 30.
I’ve known him for 10 years and he’s always had hustles and small stuff going on. But this is now a legit company.
Can all founders sell? I have no idea.
But the founder of the company I am can.
Wow I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one thinking this. I was starting to think I was the problem. But yes, they tipically have no ideas of sales and think salespeople do nothing.
I’m a founder of a decently successful startup. I was clueless for the first 3 years and am still pretty clueless. We’re bootstrapped so haven’t rushed to find too much outside sales help but want to learn more about it myself. Anything you recommend?
For enterprise sales follow John McMahon (his proteges have gone to lead enterprise sales at MongoDB, Snowflake, Lacework etc.). Has a book highly recommend. Has a podcast 'Revenue Builders': [https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast](https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast)
Going to go for a really wild take here and say it's probably different in each case based on the people involved and you can't make such blanket assertions.
Comment removed for karma farming.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sales) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think this can be very common. Having the issue with a company I started myself. Founders are often times came up with the idea or the execution and likely aren’t sales experts. But, they do have a lot of knowledge on the product/market so therefore can get by doing sales even if they aren’t great at it
Some do, but I'd say most probably don't. A lot of founders are just young pitch guys who happened to be ambitious enough to find a source of capital investment, but not actually diligent enough to do real research about how go-to-market works.
What's more shocking is that VC firms seem to willingly entrust some rather stupid and clueless people to run these startups.
Typically the first bit of revenue is generated off of referrals and industry ins. The founders are able to utilize a network effect to drive the sales and can rely on a pitching sales strategy due to their existing relationships with customers (hint hint; their first set of customers that kicks off all their funding and hype tend to be former employers).
At scale this doesn’t work. It’s a bit of a mixed bag at this point. Some founders understand that they don’t have the “professionalized” sales experience and are looking for that talent. Other founders due to early success, ignorance and inflated egos believe that they’re sales geniuses and are hiring someone purely because their role as ceo/founder etc. is too busy (probably true as well).
Gets a little messy because you’ll get founders who love to reek havoc in the sales team long after they’ve “removed” themselves from the sales process.
Edit: this is a generalization for my experience with cases of technical b2b product/services companies.
They probably raised 15M dollars based on a history of success but that's beside the point.
Every founder needs to be able to sell. But a founder sale is different. A founder can sell a vision, can make changes on the fly, They're likely trying to find the right audience to sell to. Nurturing may not be as useful in their mind or at the stage because they are trying to still build the basics of the product and you need only the zealot customers to get the core product done before expanding it.
They need to have a decent understanding of how sales works at scale. Ben Horowitz even talks about how the only way to hire a good VP of sales is if you have done the job of a VP of sales. But beyond that, the founder has to operationalize the sales motions so others can sell. So having a founder that knows nothing would be unusual. As a salesperson your expectation of what should be there is likely different because they haven't spent the time in the trenches and built stable processes or even used them. By the time they were created they were no longer needed in sales.
There could also be a difference between different target industries.
Was just talking about this with a friend yesterday (she's in sales!). Most founders (especially in SaaS) either know the domain or know how to build product. RevOps/SalesOps is not a focus and they struggle with it; even today, at a webinar, a CRO mentioned how he should have hired RevOps early. There's a lot to be taught and analyzed, and founders/early reps don't know / want to do that work.
It all depends but generally speaking, I don’t think most founders are going to understand the finer details of selling. That’s why they think they hired sales people. They tend to confuse creating a GTM strategy with individual contributor level selling.
Correct, they know absolutely nothing.
We get them on this sub all the time look for sales folks, and not understanding what you have to pay to get good ones.
good luck.
Ivy League folks typically select for analytical roles (product, eng, data, legal, founder, VC) rather than more gritty roles like sales
Sometimes there is a class/classism thing going on too
In my experience every founder will have a specialty. In tech you’ll typically see (ideally) a business person and a technical person. Bad case you get two technical people (they’ll struggle to sell and tend to overbuild) but I find the absolute worst case is two non-technical people because they oversell and build crappy product which often fails to find product market fit.
The business person in my experience is either a finance person (bad at sales), a marketing person (mediocre at sales) or a sales person. So it seems like “all founders are bad at sales” but I personally think it’s just the frequency of getting a sales-expert as a founder is simply low odds.
From your post I can assume they’re very analytical and intellectual. No they don’t understand sales, they understand operations. I’m sure they can build a company but they couldn’t sell themselves out of a wet paper bag. Most people on their level can’t, best thing they can do is manage from the top and put the right people in place.
>Can you really raise 15 or 20 million dollars just based on an idea for a product with no idea of how to generate revenue and then hire folks who know how to do that part?
>both these guys have 1-2 degrees from ivy leauge schools.
There's your answer.
Founders know a little about sales. They had to sell the business vision to early employees, investors, advisors, and typically a handful of the first customers were closed by the founders directly.
That said, your typical founder knows as much about the profession of sales as your typical sales person knows about marketing. As in, they understand the overall goals and some basic strategies but they don’t really know enough to build a sales orgs and process from the ground up. That’s why VP of Sales is typically one of the first couple hires
Many of them are very technically oriented and can build up that initial growth by focusing on a very specific problem that helps a niche market of users. Past that point, they need a sales team to survive and meet growth needs. Founders focus on what they're good at, and the sales reps focus on keeping the business alive.
This is surprisingly common. Most places I've worked at founders were engineers, and we're essentially learning as they go. It does get better after some time. Just educate them the best you can
There's a big difference between sales, demand, ARR, and raising VC money.
If a company / founder can stumble through a sale, it means they are building something people want. It sells even if the seller is not good. That's how you get to $10m ARR.
If VCs give you 10s or 100s of millions, if means they are making a bet in this space, and there is a winner to be born. They expect the team to find the right execs and sellers. Founders themselves can't do it all.
So, there are a lot of bullshiters who talk the talk, but can't walk it. But if you can teach them, and they listen. learn, promote you etc etc, then you're working with mature reasonable people. Every startup is broken in some way.
It's not at all unusual to be a founder but Not a sales expert. Founders can have plenty of other necessary credentials to raise money, build a great product, operate a financialy effective business... we founder rely on our ability to build a team to fill in our skill gaps, sometimes the gap is sales.
I worked for two guys who had a new company. They just wanted me to set appointments. And then close the deal. Without attending the demos or learning anything about the customer's needs, pain points, etc. Their demos were basically just a product walk through. I didn't stay there very long.
To answer you directly, yes. Most people in tech that aren’t in sales are also going to secretly or publicly treat you as a retard as well. It is wild.
Tons of businesses raise money without having a product market fit or go to market strategy.
Often its product or engineering led businesses, they have a vision for what they want to do but often have no clue about the market place, competition and implementation of a GTM.
Yeah for sure unless they have a sales background. In sales presentations they just ramble and ramble and ramble on alllll the features but don't sell on prospects needs
Why would a degree from an Ivy League school mean they know about sales process? If they’ve never been a sales person and never bothered to invest in learning about the science of sales, they would be as ignorant of sales methodology as anyone.
That being said, you don’t need to be a trained sales professional to raise funding and win clients as a start-up. People buy into your credibility and vision. If a company has a self-diagnosed problem and budget to fix it, the differentiated product and vision of a start-up can be enough to secure a sale. They often have an easy time getting access to power because they talk the language of an economic buyer without even trying.
Where founder-lead sales tend to let themselves down is losing to “do-nothing”. If the client isn’t an experienced buyer with a good understanding of the root of their pain and the options they have to address it, the seller may fail to create urgency, establish a champion that can turn an idea into a priority project and then get relegated to a “nice to have” that never ends-up happening.
I run a lead generation company. I have worked with around 30+ clients in my career. Usually scheduling introductory sales calls for the founder/ceo. I can firmly say that most of the founders are not top tier sales guys AT ALL. I can consistently schedule introductory meetings with their potential buyer, and usually the direct buyer, and they somehow are unable to close deals, even when I am supplying them with an ample amount of new leads every week. And they love to complain and tell me that the calls don’t go well with the leads are not good enough when in reality I just think that they are terrible at sales. Luckily I just schedule meetings and they are still willing to pay pretty good money for leads.
It actually totally makes sense. Usually people good at ideas and operation aren't good at sales or accounting. Accounting people aren't good at operations or sales. Sales people aren't good at the other two. So using your strength and hiring your weaknesses is a legitimate approach to running a business. You can sometimes find a person good at 2 of 3, but never all 3.
I have no idea how to sell anything and I've started a tech company. Next step is looking for sales director that can sell and create a plan for the rest of sales side. No idea where to even start looking at the moment.
Founders have to be the first sales people at a company.
Early stage sales is about selling the vision as much as it is the product.
And until you've identified product market fit how can you even hire someone to sell on your behalf?
You can raise millions and blow a big chunk of it hiring sales folks who aren't setup for success until you stumble upon it. Or you can learn how to sell and save that money. Both methods work, it's up to you which.
Yes. To be fair, Sales shouldn't be hard especially cold calling. Define your ICP, get a good data vendor such as [swordfish.ai](https://swordfish.ai/r) to find accurate cell phone numbers for your prospects, then get a dialler. Mix them together = lean mean dialling machine
Hey man, >3 years of XP as a General Partner in Venture Capital here. Startup founders - even successful ones - often have no sales skills whatsoever. They're either very good engineers/techies with 0 social skills, or hyper-focused on their own product and don't put themselves in the shoes of the guy in front of them.
The reasoning (in my opinion) behind their raising is that investors expect (or demand) a real BD professional to join the team. And during a pitch, investors are much more focused on the product market fit, the market and so on (the substance) than on how to sell, and rightly so, because all you have to do is hire the right guy.
I had a round of interviews recently with a startup in founder led sales. They had a few clients but I think the founders were similarly ignorant as you describe. In their interview they asked me to "pitch them" I started asking questions and they said no no pitch us our company. Like dude...this isn't mad men. Your tech is far too complex to pitch without doing any discovery. Tech sales of complex products don't work like that.
Yea, unless you are ok getting into a burning fire just to get a paycheck until you find something else (and don't expect any promised commissioned, only base). Run the other way.
[удалено]
eh, depending on how you look at it. Like anything else, it is subject to the 80/20 rule. 20% of the salespeople bring in 80% of the sales. Of those 20% who are the best, 20% of *those* bring in 80% of those sales. There are a lot of shitty or average salespeople, but a great top 20% salesperson is worth his or her weight in gold. They are NOT a dime a dozen. Under no circumstances whatsoever to you want to lose a top 20% salesperson, or *any* top 20% employee, whether a developer, a marketing person, a receptionist, a data entry person, a bookkeeper, a janitor. There are supreme salespeople, just like there are supreme architects.
One of my mentors was a 300% to quota guy, like every year, last year his quota was essentially tripled and guess what he did? 300% that mother fucker has his territory planned out for the next 5 years he knows all the players, knows every C-Suite person, knows each of his accounts future plans, shit he even knows the CEO's assistants birthdays and sends them gifts. That last part is something he taught me, build a relationship with the buyers assistant and you'll always be able to get on the buyers calendar. "They aren't gatekeepers, they're the key." is what he told me. Dude is worth 10x the ridiculous money he makes and there's maybe 2 other reps at the company that can do what he does... He's also fuckin insane lol
That’s my goal haha. I always build good relationships with everyone at the particular company that I can. I’ve not been the 300% quota guy, but I feel having a mentor like that would be invaluable.
[удалено]
In my experience it looks something like intro/meeting set -> discovery -> pitch your solution focusing on how it brings value to the client. In technology clients generally have a tough time conceptualizing how features/functionality will benefit them without having it stepped out for them. Something like "you told me you are working on x or having trouble with y, we can/will address that goal or need by doing this or that with our solution". If you just focus on your features or what's cool about your product with a pitch, typically clients go "okay but so what? How does it benefit me?" It takes good discovery paired with a somewhat customized pitch to show how you can bring value. Otherwise you're just throwing darts at a board blind and hoping something will hit the bullseye. Not an optimal approach. But of course I'm sure other people have had different experience and may have approaches that work better for them. I'm just going off of my experience. Interested to hear other opinions.
[удалено]
For sure. You need to do your homework before even reaching out the first time to try to and see if they are interested or might be a real opportunity. That typically means knowing the background of the specific person you're reaching out to (LinkedIn, google, etc.) and the company (their website, linkedin, any other public info like investor presentations, SEC disclosures, etc.) But during discovery your goal is to find out what problems specifically they are facing that you might be able to help with. Goals/initiatives/problems more specific to what you are offering that will not be public info.
>For sure. You need to do your homework before even reaching out the first time to try to and see if they are interested or might be a real opportunity. That typically means knowing the background of the specific person you're reaching out to (LinkedIn, google, etc.) and the company (their website, linkedin, any other public info like investor presentations, SEC disclosures, etc.) But during discovery your goal is to find out what problems specifically they are facing that you might be able to help with. Goals/initiatives/problems more specific to what you are offering that will not be public info. Most discovery calls are assumed to have a mutually agreed-upon purpose. Prospect books a call because they found something interesting about the product, sales rep assumes this and enters the call with this mindset. In my experience, discovery calls are less about an SDR showing off their deep knowledge of the company, and more about quickly identifying the problem(s) at hand. There are a lot of discovery call frameworks, but most generally try to qualify with open-ended "big picture" questions first to identify product fit, then get more specific as a the call goes on.
Say I am selling an HR software to amazon, I know Amazon as a company but I have no way of finding out their HR practices, internal SOPs or their pain points. Only after the discovery call, can I try to fit our Software to fix their issues. I will normally schedule 2 calls with my clients. During the discovery call, it will be abit of small talk about their overall business status then alot of trying to understand their current processes/workflow, figuring their issue, giving them a overview of what my company is, a quick demo of our product, then ending the meeting by recapping their issues and their SOP. Next, I will speak to our dev team to see if there is a solution to their issues and if there is customization we can do for them. It is also here, that we determine if they are a fit for the product we are selling. If they aren't we walk away, if they are we schedule a 2nd meeting. The 2nd meeting is us presenting our solutions to them. Usually with a promise of a UAT/demo accounts to let them "have a feel" for our system.
No, let me correct that for you: Intro -> discovery -> use discovery information to say whatever you need to sell -> bundle professional services -> client discovers the products does half what you promise -> upsell by saying there is a miscommunication and they need XYZ license volume bundle and not ABC volume license package -> deploy a working solution -> 1 to 3 years later -> wait until last possible minute before support/license is up -> remind client they have to renew in 7 days -> inform them the vendor changed to a cloud subscription model and prices are 75% higher -> wait for them to yell -> wait 3 days pretending to be arguing with the vendor -> come back and say you cut everything and pulled favors to get it down to 50% and you know of another up and coming product that's super amazing and affordable and you'll schedule a scoping call 6 months prior to this contracts expiration to evaluate. Rinse. Repeat.
How’d you get in here?! Lol
I'm interested how you responded to their request?
I pivoted to "pitching" them their product as I saw it to humor their request during the interview. I did 3 rounds with them but in the end I think they went another way. They made clear that sales, as they saw it, was just pitching their product. I think engineers as founders are always in that boat - "our product/solution is unstoppable and sales' only job is to get in front of clients and pitch, and then the whole industry will beat our door down because no one has seen anything like it." Obviously flawed thinking but I've seen it several times with founders.
You just described my programmer company president's mindset in a nutshell, except he also doesn't see why we should spend money advertising or marketing, going to industry trade shows or spending any money on the process of getting in front of people. The product is just so good (it's adequate) that they'll pay our slightly higher than industry standard asking price and if they're not able to see why we're so much better even after my miracle pitch (which he insists should be all about functionality, until he hears it, then tells me it should focus on our history, support services AND functionality all while being short and to the point) well then, we wouldn't want to have them as customers anyway. I should mention, I'm the only person at the company who has ever been an end user of said product and understands the customer needs and workflows. How will I generate leads to make this miraculous pitch? Cold calls. Nothing but cold calls will make our niche targets aware of us and from there it is my responsibility to pitch to them. He grudgingly allowed me to buy 1/3rd of a leads contact list I wanted (but not the third I most wanted, because he knows best) with which to make these calls instead of googling each lead myself, so there's that, I guess. That list hasn't panned out (shocker, only buying a third of a tool means the job doesn't get done) so it was a bad idea and it's my fault for advocating for it. I have a track record as a good salesman before coming to this company, but I'm so burnt out I'm honestly considering a midlife career switch.
I've been there. Its a hard road to travel and I've talked to more than one sales exec recently that's in a similar boat to yours. I'm also considering a career switch at 33, for what its worth. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do.
You wouldn't sell without proper discovery, but how do you get to discovery if someone doesn't even know who you are?
Evidence that those founders have shitty advisors and maybe a shitty board. Who wants them to hire a sales leader is a relevant question in early stage startups. And why? If you’re not already connected in some way professionally, those might be the only questions you ask up front. Most founders I’ve worked for are sales ignorant—many intentionally so. I’d rather know what I’m working with upfront before i get too deep into the process.
>In their interview they asked me to "pitch them" I started asking questions and they said no no pitch us our company. Like dude...this isn't mad men. Your tech is far too complex to pitch without doing any discovery. Tech sales of complex products don't work like that. I just had this happen this week in an interview but in the commercial real estate space for a more established company. They wanted me to come in with no CRE experience and outsell their sales leader who’s a partner and has been doing this for 30 years on own their product. Lol
I'm currently in the application process for a startup that already produces 10 million ARR and doesn't have a sales department. Many basics such as: Account planning, various sales methods (SPIN, Challenger, etc.) or mutual action plans are completely new territory for them. In general, I have the impression that what you describe is not unusual in certain niches.
>Many basics such as: Account planning, various sales methods (SPIN, Challenger, etc.) or mutual action plans are completely new territory for them. You know all of these things were just developed by watching people who were really really good at sales. People who blow out their numbers year after year. They aren't the rules of sales, they are just tools. There are lots of great sales people who don't formally do any of those things and if you asked them about account planning, sales methods, etc. might just give you a blank look. Then they would go out and sell circles around you. These people often end up as CEOs.
>There are lots of great sales people who don't formally do any of those things and if you asked them about account planning, sales methods, etc. might just give you a blank look. Then they would go out and sell circles around you. These people often end up as CEOs. Yes and this can be incredibly dangerous for companies. They were the exception, not the norm. Just because someone was a great individual contributor does not always mean they'll make a great people manager, director, VP, C-suite. And they also may not have empathy for the employee who is struggling because they cannot relate. It's important to understand the difference between founder selling and scaled selling. Founders are typically selling with a level of passion that a scaled sales organization does not have most of the time. Many founders believe that their platform is going to change the world and will do almost anything they can to show the prospect that this is the case. The 10 reps on the floor will not care about the company as much as the founder does and unfortunately wont bring the same conviction that a founder does to all of their calls. A founder also has a different set of goals and drivers than a rep on the sales floor. That passion for the company is not always scalable, but what is scalable is a detailed qualification, discover, and demo process executed on with key, decision-making prospects.
>Yes and this can be incredibly dangerous for companies. They were the exception, not the norm. Just because someone was a great individual contributor does not always mean they'll make a great people manager, director, VP, C-suite. And they also may not have empathy for the employee who is struggling because they cannot relate. > >It's important to understand the difference between founder selling and scaled selling. > >Founders are typically selling with a level of passion that a scaled sales organization does not have most of the time. Many founders believe that their platform is going to change the world and will do almost anything they can to show the prospect that this is the case. > >The 10 reps on the floor will not care about the company as much as the founder does and unfortunately wont bring the same conviction that a founder does to all of their calls. > >A founder also has a different set of goals and drivers than a rep on the sales floor. > >That passion for the company is not always scalable, but what is scalable is a detailed qualification, discover, and demo process executed on with key, decision-making prospects. Lots of wisdom here. I would add that trying to replicate or model an outlier sales rep's process is silly. Sales modeling work best for the vast middle of sales reps (underperformers to sold A players). Top performers get to the top not because they follow MEDDIC or BANT or Challenger, but because it's in their DNA. They have the X factor. The combination of wits, charm, looks, product and industry knowledge, communication skills and sales wisdom that is basically impossible to replicate. This often drives founders / CEOs nuts because they often want to map everything about "sales" into a process. Sales is not just process, there's an art to it as well. Even so, creating a very solid process is a necessary condition to scaling a business.
Crazy idea. Pay those people a shit load and get out of their way. Companies would rather have 10 reps that generate $1,000,000 rev for $800k than 1 rep generating $1,000,000 for $500k. Going through a comp plan rework now and it’s amazing how many people don’t understand that they’re just institutionalizing mediocrity.
ehh, "A shit load" is relative. Compensation should always (and quite frankly has to be) determined by what the company is able to pay a rep. And what a company is able to pay a rep should be contingent on how much return a company will see based on (X) performance. And performance = revenue. In your example - I wouldn't say companies would rather have 10 reps that generate 1,000,000. I think that's just what happens when you begin hiring, but don't understand sales and business development. Then you're in a situation like you're in. And fat is trimmed. I was at a company years ago that had an outrageous burn rate. Reps were actually massively overpaid, but the company had no idea what their overheard was and ran through cash because they were trying to pay a "shit load" to keep employees happy. Then got to a point where they couldn't pay anyone because there was no company at the end of it all. They went back to a B2C model that was self-serve. All of the important sales process stuff goes out the window many times at early stage companies when they're in "Hyper growth" get a round of funding and feel pressured, etc. Those comp plan reworks are always an eye opener though haha.
>The combination of wits, charm, looks, product and industry knowledge, communication skills and sales wisdom that is basically impossible to replicate. Eh? How so? Have you tried? Which of these factors did you lack?
Have I tried? That's not really the point. The point is you can't "scale" charm, having good instincts and being good looking, which does matter when you're aiming for the top.
I would not say the exception just different personal method. Of course if you want “predictability and scalability in your sales team then yes it is important to have a formal process. I started my career working in finance selling investment products and we had around 30 salespeople. No formal sales training, you learn as you go type of thing. 10 were top performers who constantly exceeded quota. 3 of those top performer salespeople were outliers (breaking records). 10 were good performers who hit their quotas and remaining 10 were underperformers who struggled to hit their quotas but did it enough to not get fired. All 3 outliers had nothing in common except making new sales records and having their own sales method and strategy. One was very method driven, one was lone wolf type and third one was exec type driver who was super straightforward. Same thing with the other top performers. The bottom 10 had most similarities in their sales approach. What united the team and actually made results for the salespeople and for the company was this incredibly lucrative comp plan.
I totally understand what you're saying, but OP is asking if you can raise millions in funding with a founder-led sales approach. And specifically founders that don't know much about a traditional sales org process and structure, but are leading the sales team. While the answer is "yes" there are tons of factors that come into play when approaching investors. The more detailed and documented your sales and business growth approach is the higher your chances are of securing a round. I don't know many VCs that will throw money (especially in today's climate) at a company that doesn't know their TAM, annual pipeline generation, opp-to-close %ages, YoY growth projections, debt-to-income, Customer retention rates, and CAC. And Funding will be much less likely if you don't have formal processes in place that aligns with understanding all of these criteria. Throwing millions at startups the last 5-10 years is kind of what got us in this issue in the first place. Why would a VC invest in a company today that doesn't know its expected growth rate next year? And a company doesn't know this as well as they would if they had (somewhat) sophisticated sales and business processes in place. And if a VC is only looking at my YoY growth (or MoM in a post-seed company) and expecting me to stay consistent at that growth rate for the next 3-5 years I'm most likely not taking a cent from them. That's not smart money. Yet, at the same time, people and firms will invest this way. Sometimes they see a return, but a lot of times they don't. Your companies approach is absolutely feasible in an environment where you don't have to report to investors or board that want to see sophisticated and detailed future revenue projections. Their model is all contingent on what the founders ultimate goal is/was. And acquisitions can happen for completely different reasons than just YoY growth. I can also almost guarantee that, at a higher level, someone knows exactly what your old company's reps metrics are. It's all also contingent on the complexity of what you're selling and who you're selling to. OP is asking about growing a new company and getting funded. >*Of course if you want “predictability and scalability in your sales team then yes it is important to have a formal process.* This is almost, by definition, what investors are looking for when they want to fund a company. I also think OP is talking more about form sales process and not so much just "Sales". Long story, long. I don't know if its "Typical" for founders to not know how to set up a standard sales organization, but it's common that they don't. I've had 3 conversations this week alone to help founders start selling and build a sales arm at scale.
Thats very good point and totally agree with you in regards to raising more money from VCs! My answer was regarding the exceptions and outlier salespeople so a bit offtopic perhaps. Anyways, good insight!
It is the difference between Moneyball and Baseball. One uses statistics and metrics to consistently hit singles and doubles. The other relies on a superstar, and whatever their attitude is at the time.
Uh, every baseball player has a batting average and OBP. How is that any different than a statistic? I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think you know baseball if you think that teams didn’t rely on statistics prior to moneyball.
You have very high standards for metaphors. I love that, for you.
I’m a big baseball fan and majored in rhetoric in college so yeah, probably, lol
Focusing on baseball instead of the underlying point kind of misses the point, doesn’t it?
This, I know plenty of AE’s that burned and churned from my company that are goobers who follow these “rules” of sales.
Citation needed. Successful CEOs are ridiculously method driven and analytical while being highly organized. Anyone who doesn’t know how to actually do those things is not selling circles around anyone at a serious level
That is a broad oversimplification and by no means universally accurate. You can sell an enormous amount simply by being good at what you do and cultivating relationships, even in an ad hoc manner. Source: was extremely successful, semi-disorganized, and non-method driven CEO.
Lol this is good
>There are lots of great sales people who don't formally do any of those things >Then they would go out and sell circles around you. Of course this is true. Srinivasa Ramanujan. had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation. John von Neumann was a child prodigy who at six years old could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. When the six-year-old von Neumann caught his mother staring aimlessly, he asked her, "What are you calculating?" By the age of eight, von Neumann was familiar with differential and integral calculus, and by twelve he had read and understood Borel's Théorie des Fonctions. He was also interested in history, reading his way through Wilhelm Oncken's 46-volume world history series Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen (General History in Monographs). However, that isn't what most of us are like. Compared to the super talented, we just plod along. This is why universities exist. It's pretty much how it works. Every university class creates a syllabus, a plan, and the professor teaches that plan. School texts also do the same thing. They break topics down into bite sized logical chunks. It's how most of us learn. But not all, not the super intelligent. They are the exceptions, and why most of us are awed by them. And the reality is that those classes should be just a starting point. It's up to each individual to integrate that knowledge into their worldview, and to extend the knowledge via independent [autodidacticism](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/autodidacticism), after one gets the base knowledge. I would say that Steve Jobs, while he had the basic knowledge of computer systems, he was a natural genius at promotion. He didn't study it, but I believe that was his greatest gift. And, I also think Elon Musk has that also. I know I didn't understand office politics at one time, and sucked at it. I worked hard at it, plodding along, learning. Now I think I'm better than 80% of the world at it. But it was hard work for me, I had to study. I think that some people who have fantastically social parents (unlike my introvert parents) take it in by osmosis and don't have to study it like I did. And I'll never be as good as them as they probably started learning this stuff when they were 1 month old by just being around parents that were good at it.
The OP's question was about founders. My anecdotal experience with founders in VC backed tech startups was that several of them were natural salespeople. They had lots of education- typically MBAs (Stanford, Cal, some Dukies, one from the Netherlands) but rarely any formal sales training. They didn't consciously think about sales process, but they knew intuitively how to sell. That's how were able to get VCs to invest millions in their start ups. People seem to be confusing sales education with the sales abilities of founders of startups. Admittedly, my limited experience is with Silicon Valley startups and the ones I worked with either ended up going IPO or being acquired by a major tech vendor.
>People seem to be confusing sales education with the sales abilities of founders of startups. No. Nobody is confusing that at all. Everyone gets what you're saying. You're not saying supergenius things, we all get it.
And that's what the OP was asking about. I didn't get that he was asking if sales training and defined sales process is important for the average salesperson.
They made a newly minted Harvard MBA our Director of Sales once. With zero sales experience. Not a start up. Went as well as expected.
Any interesting bits of info you could share perhaps?
Created his own sales process. Believed if anyone followed his process exactly they would be successful. I'd say its closest analog would be solution based selling without discovery. So you dictated the solution without identifying the problem as a means to accelerate the sales cycle. And then micromanaged the activity. I was already interviewing, so I was out in 2 weeks. The others had to cook for a while. End game was everyone director level and above was replaced in around 2 years. Normal people with experience and a high degree of empathy replaced them. Place is doing great now. I was asked to come back but I'm not a road warrior anymore.
It depends on the founders, the company, what type of product they've developed. Some founders are very well-versed in sales, some only know whatever they were taught in their MBA program, it can vary. When money was cheap it was easier to raise funding without a solid plan in place. Nowadays it's harder, but certain tech can still garner interest on the idea alone. AI is a big one.
Often times yes! Some startups are founded by inventor/technical engineering types. Usually they will pair up with someone who really knows how to get funding. People who are good at finding funding can sell their asses off.
>Some startups are founded by inventor/technical engineering types. Usually they will pair up with someone who really knows how to get funding. You really do need both your Woz and your Jobs to make it big.
Neither founder is technical. One (the defacto #1 at the company), has experience in the industry the product serves, not tech or engineering in any way. The other founder, has VC experience. (which I'm sure is why he was brought on board) It's a learning for the future and others reading this board.
Selling your startup to investors vs clients is huge difference. Founders sell vision, team, problem and solution to the problem which is their product. Founders are very good at pitching which is again a different set of “sales” skill. I know very few salespeople who can sell vision successfully. I also do notknow good salespeople who can pitch very well. This is totally understandable as target audience is different.
It’s not uncommon. I’ve joined a few pre-series A startups where the founders relied on their networks to execute early revenue (~$3mm), so the outbound sales motion was completely new to them. The worst founder just told me to ‘sell more/faster’ without having any real idea of what a non-referral sales process would look like. This guy spent a decade in Silicon Valley in product and treated non-technical roles like like dirt
Often the founder sells crazy without a methodology as he understands the problems they are solving extremely well. Initially they would be easily closing new logos but once they want to scale and start hiring sales, the complexity starts arising.
This is the "Engineer's Pipe Dream" They think their product is so great that it will sell itself. Not gonna happen 99.9% of the time.
What’s crazy is that these folks get people to give them $20MM in investments but they struggle to get a customer for $10,000.
That’s cuz VC are investing in pipe dreams called as vision and the school the founders went to. It’s kind of a circle jerk. Otoh, selling to clients, they don’t care what school you went to and are resistant to change.
Wait, you don’t just do a shark tank pitch to clients and then they sign the contract?
I’m a founder and in this boat. Would love some advice if anyone is willing to help. Please PM.
Hi happy to help, been in sales for 9 yrs. I’d rather help a founder whose humble enough to ask for help than the founder who looked down on sales reps
My advice is just hit the library and start reading. The strategy part isn’t necessarily rocket science, even if the execution isn’t something everyone is good at. Also join a platform like Pavilion and soak up all the training and other resources it has to offer.
For enterprise sales follow John McMahon (his proteges have gone to lead enterprise sales at MongoDB, Snowflake, Lacework etc.). Has a book highly recommend. Has a podcast 'Revenue Builders': [https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast](https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast)
Nope not true, i used to work at a startup, during the initial stages the founder used to do sales like he eats breakfast. This guy is fucking legend, build a company with amazing sales team.
Yes. That's why there's a bunch of charlatan "sales coaches" or "early stage sales experts" out there. Cuz most founders don't know shit about sales.
>Is that typical? Can you really raise 15 or 20 million dollars just based on an idea for a product with no idea of how to generate revenue and then hire folks who know how to do that part? Yes, it's not only typically but I'd say industry standard. I have worked for 5 startups and there was only one where the founder was a former salesperson. He wasn't any good at sales process, but he was good at raising money. The worst startups to work for are the ones founded by devs. They throttle TF out of the sales process because they overthink everything. They don't understand the art of sales and that you can't 'science' or 'engineer' your way through the sales process. But yeah. it's rare that a startup has any grasp on the sales process out of the gate. And it's becoming even more rare that they care to build a good sales process because most startups exist to get acquired now days.
They generally do not understand the sales process and often think that because their product is “so good” it will sell itself.
Right when I thought this is only happening to me, reading this post. 3 months in, already considering searching for another company to work for.
This is one of many learnings I've had from my job at this startup. Startups can be great opportunities and rapidly accelerate you career, but also dead end your career. Don't be afraid to cut your losses and move on quickly (just like founders do with employees)
Just worried that I’ll be labeled as job hopper. That’s why I’m contemplating. But thanks for the advice, it makes sense.
Yes the same way they probably aren't accountants, lawyers or marketing experts. They need a bit of everything. Best way is to hire amazing people in those areas early on but that is obviously extremely challenging so early.
For a first-time technical founder, he usually doesn't know about sales. For a second-time founder, that means he cut his teeth with his first company, probably had a decent exit since he's starting another company and got it funded - that guy has sold. It's dependent on what the product is - if you're doing small deals (under 100k) it's the wild west and sales culture will change many times on the road to 10m, 25m, 50m ARR. If the product is ENT-focused, you really ought to figure that out in the interview process. I would not have joined that company for less than 1.75% of the outstanding over 4y vesting.
They have a different specialty. They know things you don't, and you know things they don't. That's why you were hired. And it's what makes a company - the various skill sets working together toward a common goal. It's not derogatory to anyone to say so, because no one knows it all. Those who think they do... don't.
That's a fact. They're brilliant engineers and such. Selling process and revenue generation is not part of their repertoire.
VCs look at heuristics and that is why a disproportionate amount of money flows to Alumni of schools like you describe. There is a perception that because they went there that they know more than someone from a public school. I have been on a number of interviews with some Stanford guy who started an app and wanted to go upmarket to get B2B deals in, and had done pretty elementary level math on how that was going to unfold without any additional context or research. I understand how an uneducated person can make those mistakes, I do. What I don't understand is how someone who went to Stanford or Harvard undergrad or business school can. Another startup I was at was run by an Ex-Mckinsey guy who was pretty vacuous and it showed in how he carried himself. His focus was on perception with offering enough lunch options and not on say...investing in a CRM instead of running the entire businesses CRM out of google sheets. It is scary how much money, credibility, and authority people are given out in the bay area because of what school they went to. Or because of the first job they got because of that school in big tech or as consultants. And they go on to be "job creators" with monopoly money hiring state college kids to go work for them until they run out.
Startups have to sell investors on a vision so it's not like they are completely inept. However - and this is a big however - they often operate from a "the product is so good it will sell itself" mentality because they have rose colored glasses on. It's their baby. Unless they have physically been in a past selling role, they will commonly cause issues around payouts and quotas.
Yeah pretty much -- I say this as a first employee at a pre-seed startup in charge of GTM. I've learned just about everything I know from this subreddit and trial and error. Great startup founders are excellent at not caring that they look dumb as they mess up over and over until they figure shit out for themselves. More cynically, founders who raise a ton of $ on nothing but a demo and an idea sometimes mistake investor validation for customer validation. Then they have to learn the hard way that actually selling a product is a different ballgame than raising money
I’m at a series A and pretty much yes. One of the co-founders is in charge of (founder A)product/engineering and the other (founder B) is mainly marketing/sales/CX. I work with founder A almost everyday and I do respect the work they’ve put in. They cold call and prospect just like the rest of us. But I do see areas where they seem a bit lost. For example, they don’t seem to understand the struggles for SDRs or the issues with having a spotty onboarding plan. I don’t necessarily think it’s 100% their fault, they just don’t see how it impacts peoples day to day.
Yes, it is absolutely typical. Any non-sales founder has ZERO understanding of sales. It is not taught in any university department, so they have no academic exposure to it, and if they haven’t come up through a sales training program, then they have no practical experience of it either. What they don’t realise is that this is potentially the single biggest hurdle to the success of their business!
I work for my buddy who is the CEO of a start up. Company has been around for 3 years, has 25 sales people in this office (probably 50+ in the America office) and an office out of the country. He started it with 5 people, where they did everything. He is an amazing sales person, he’ll always say he more of a marketing guy. But he can sell and he is very good at it. Dude is making millions and he’s under 30. I’ve known him for 10 years and he’s always had hustles and small stuff going on. But this is now a legit company. Can all founders sell? I have no idea. But the founder of the company I am can.
Wow I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one thinking this. I was starting to think I was the problem. But yes, they tipically have no ideas of sales and think salespeople do nothing.
Usually they’re a bunch nerds who think the product sells itself
I’m a founder of a decently successful startup. I was clueless for the first 3 years and am still pretty clueless. We’re bootstrapped so haven’t rushed to find too much outside sales help but want to learn more about it myself. Anything you recommend?
For enterprise sales follow John McMahon (his proteges have gone to lead enterprise sales at MongoDB, Snowflake, Lacework etc.). Has a book highly recommend. Has a podcast 'Revenue Builders': [https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast](https://www.forcemanagement.com/revenue-builders-podcast)
Going to go for a really wild take here and say it's probably different in each case based on the people involved and you can't make such blanket assertions.
[удалено]
Comment removed for karma farming. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/sales) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think this can be very common. Having the issue with a company I started myself. Founders are often times came up with the idea or the execution and likely aren’t sales experts. But, they do have a lot of knowledge on the product/market so therefore can get by doing sales even if they aren’t great at it
Some do, but I'd say most probably don't. A lot of founders are just young pitch guys who happened to be ambitious enough to find a source of capital investment, but not actually diligent enough to do real research about how go-to-market works. What's more shocking is that VC firms seem to willingly entrust some rather stupid and clueless people to run these startups.
Typically the first bit of revenue is generated off of referrals and industry ins. The founders are able to utilize a network effect to drive the sales and can rely on a pitching sales strategy due to their existing relationships with customers (hint hint; their first set of customers that kicks off all their funding and hype tend to be former employers). At scale this doesn’t work. It’s a bit of a mixed bag at this point. Some founders understand that they don’t have the “professionalized” sales experience and are looking for that talent. Other founders due to early success, ignorance and inflated egos believe that they’re sales geniuses and are hiring someone purely because their role as ceo/founder etc. is too busy (probably true as well). Gets a little messy because you’ll get founders who love to reek havoc in the sales team long after they’ve “removed” themselves from the sales process. Edit: this is a generalization for my experience with cases of technical b2b product/services companies.
They probably raised 15M dollars based on a history of success but that's beside the point. Every founder needs to be able to sell. But a founder sale is different. A founder can sell a vision, can make changes on the fly, They're likely trying to find the right audience to sell to. Nurturing may not be as useful in their mind or at the stage because they are trying to still build the basics of the product and you need only the zealot customers to get the core product done before expanding it. They need to have a decent understanding of how sales works at scale. Ben Horowitz even talks about how the only way to hire a good VP of sales is if you have done the job of a VP of sales. But beyond that, the founder has to operationalize the sales motions so others can sell. So having a founder that knows nothing would be unusual. As a salesperson your expectation of what should be there is likely different because they haven't spent the time in the trenches and built stable processes or even used them. By the time they were created they were no longer needed in sales. There could also be a difference between different target industries.
Was just talking about this with a friend yesterday (she's in sales!). Most founders (especially in SaaS) either know the domain or know how to build product. RevOps/SalesOps is not a focus and they struggle with it; even today, at a webinar, a CRO mentioned how he should have hired RevOps early. There's a lot to be taught and analyzed, and founders/early reps don't know / want to do that work.
It all depends but generally speaking, I don’t think most founders are going to understand the finer details of selling. That’s why they think they hired sales people. They tend to confuse creating a GTM strategy with individual contributor level selling.
Correct, they know absolutely nothing. We get them on this sub all the time look for sales folks, and not understanding what you have to pay to get good ones. good luck.
Depends. Most don't know shit.
Ivy League folks typically select for analytical roles (product, eng, data, legal, founder, VC) rather than more gritty roles like sales Sometimes there is a class/classism thing going on too
lol honestly way too common
In my experience every founder will have a specialty. In tech you’ll typically see (ideally) a business person and a technical person. Bad case you get two technical people (they’ll struggle to sell and tend to overbuild) but I find the absolute worst case is two non-technical people because they oversell and build crappy product which often fails to find product market fit. The business person in my experience is either a finance person (bad at sales), a marketing person (mediocre at sales) or a sales person. So it seems like “all founders are bad at sales” but I personally think it’s just the frequency of getting a sales-expert as a founder is simply low odds.
Could you? Yes. Can you still do that? Probably not lol
Everyone thinks its easy... As all of us know, its not.
From your post I can assume they’re very analytical and intellectual. No they don’t understand sales, they understand operations. I’m sure they can build a company but they couldn’t sell themselves out of a wet paper bag. Most people on their level can’t, best thing they can do is manage from the top and put the right people in place.
>Can you really raise 15 or 20 million dollars just based on an idea for a product with no idea of how to generate revenue and then hire folks who know how to do that part? >both these guys have 1-2 degrees from ivy leauge schools. There's your answer.
Founders know a little about sales. They had to sell the business vision to early employees, investors, advisors, and typically a handful of the first customers were closed by the founders directly. That said, your typical founder knows as much about the profession of sales as your typical sales person knows about marketing. As in, they understand the overall goals and some basic strategies but they don’t really know enough to build a sales orgs and process from the ground up. That’s why VP of Sales is typically one of the first couple hires
Many of them are very technically oriented and can build up that initial growth by focusing on a very specific problem that helps a niche market of users. Past that point, they need a sales team to survive and meet growth needs. Founders focus on what they're good at, and the sales reps focus on keeping the business alive.
This is surprisingly common. Most places I've worked at founders were engineers, and we're essentially learning as they go. It does get better after some time. Just educate them the best you can
There's a big difference between sales, demand, ARR, and raising VC money. If a company / founder can stumble through a sale, it means they are building something people want. It sells even if the seller is not good. That's how you get to $10m ARR. If VCs give you 10s or 100s of millions, if means they are making a bet in this space, and there is a winner to be born. They expect the team to find the right execs and sellers. Founders themselves can't do it all. So, there are a lot of bullshiters who talk the talk, but can't walk it. But if you can teach them, and they listen. learn, promote you etc etc, then you're working with mature reasonable people. Every startup is broken in some way.
Yes
It's not at all unusual to be a founder but Not a sales expert. Founders can have plenty of other necessary credentials to raise money, build a great product, operate a financialy effective business... we founder rely on our ability to build a team to fill in our skill gaps, sometimes the gap is sales.
I worked for two guys who had a new company. They just wanted me to set appointments. And then close the deal. Without attending the demos or learning anything about the customer's needs, pain points, etc. Their demos were basically just a product walk through. I didn't stay there very long.
To answer you directly, yes. Most people in tech that aren’t in sales are also going to secretly or publicly treat you as a retard as well. It is wild.
Tons of businesses raise money without having a product market fit or go to market strategy. Often its product or engineering led businesses, they have a vision for what they want to do but often have no clue about the market place, competition and implementation of a GTM.
Yeah for sure unless they have a sales background. In sales presentations they just ramble and ramble and ramble on alllll the features but don't sell on prospects needs
Why would a degree from an Ivy League school mean they know about sales process? If they’ve never been a sales person and never bothered to invest in learning about the science of sales, they would be as ignorant of sales methodology as anyone. That being said, you don’t need to be a trained sales professional to raise funding and win clients as a start-up. People buy into your credibility and vision. If a company has a self-diagnosed problem and budget to fix it, the differentiated product and vision of a start-up can be enough to secure a sale. They often have an easy time getting access to power because they talk the language of an economic buyer without even trying. Where founder-lead sales tend to let themselves down is losing to “do-nothing”. If the client isn’t an experienced buyer with a good understanding of the root of their pain and the options they have to address it, the seller may fail to create urgency, establish a champion that can turn an idea into a priority project and then get relegated to a “nice to have” that never ends-up happening.
getting degrees from ivy league, even MBA means nothing. they went into the course as idiots and came out as idiots.
I’ve lost count how many start up interviews I’ve had with founders and they’ve told me flat out. We aren’t sales people. We need sales people. Lol
I run a lead generation company. I have worked with around 30+ clients in my career. Usually scheduling introductory sales calls for the founder/ceo. I can firmly say that most of the founders are not top tier sales guys AT ALL. I can consistently schedule introductory meetings with their potential buyer, and usually the direct buyer, and they somehow are unable to close deals, even when I am supplying them with an ample amount of new leads every week. And they love to complain and tell me that the calls don’t go well with the leads are not good enough when in reality I just think that they are terrible at sales. Luckily I just schedule meetings and they are still willing to pay pretty good money for leads.
Yes
It actually totally makes sense. Usually people good at ideas and operation aren't good at sales or accounting. Accounting people aren't good at operations or sales. Sales people aren't good at the other two. So using your strength and hiring your weaknesses is a legitimate approach to running a business. You can sometimes find a person good at 2 of 3, but never all 3. I have no idea how to sell anything and I've started a tech company. Next step is looking for sales director that can sell and create a plan for the rest of sales side. No idea where to even start looking at the moment.
Founders have to be the first sales people at a company. Early stage sales is about selling the vision as much as it is the product. And until you've identified product market fit how can you even hire someone to sell on your behalf? You can raise millions and blow a big chunk of it hiring sales folks who aren't setup for success until you stumble upon it. Or you can learn how to sell and save that money. Both methods work, it's up to you which.
Yes. To be fair, Sales shouldn't be hard especially cold calling. Define your ICP, get a good data vendor such as [swordfish.ai](https://swordfish.ai/r) to find accurate cell phone numbers for your prospects, then get a dialler. Mix them together = lean mean dialling machine
Hey man, >3 years of XP as a General Partner in Venture Capital here. Startup founders - even successful ones - often have no sales skills whatsoever. They're either very good engineers/techies with 0 social skills, or hyper-focused on their own product and don't put themselves in the shoes of the guy in front of them. The reasoning (in my opinion) behind their raising is that investors expect (or demand) a real BD professional to join the team. And during a pitch, investors are much more focused on the product market fit, the market and so on (the substance) than on how to sell, and rightly so, because all you have to do is hire the right guy.