Exposing yourself to the direct, harsh feedback of the market is key. I've noticed that bad founders will do just about anything to avoid this. Instead of selling, which is hard, they spend their time going to conferences and meetups, trying to do PR, talking to biz dev people about partnerships, etc. It all sounds like work, but mainly serves to insulate them from the harsh reality that nobody wants their product.
When I said yesterday in a thread about Perfect Audience (which just sold for 25.5MM) that Brad Flora was my working definition of "hustle", and someone asked me what I meant --- this is exactly what I meant. He would describe what he was doing to move sales processes forward in Chicago and I would react by wincing, and then amazement.
This is also why one of the most powerful bits of advice I've ever picked up from HN is Paul Graham's (paraphrased) "if nobody makes fun of your crappy product when you launch it, you waited too long to launch". For a lot of developers, the resistance to sales shows itself in a strong feeling that the product isn't done, isn't ready. The Steve Blank process is a pretty good antidote to this.
Also: startup hipsters and MBA types will talk down cold-calling, but I have a friend hustling a pretty complicated product right now and I have watched him make cold calls work. Again: wince, then jaw drop. Then learn.
I agree. Going head on into sales makes all the difference.
My first company was an ISP that we started with a $40k seed investment, out of a basement. I literally sat down with the phone book and started phoning companies to people to host web sites with us. This was in '95, and many of the people I called did not even know what the internet was, much less had any idea of why they'd want a website, so it was a difficult proposition.
All I knew about sales, I knew from a one day course and two weeks experience doing calls for a charity.
My main takeaway from said charity, who had professionalized extracting money from people, was that if you worry about your product, you don't understand; when you do cold calls, it's 99% about emotion and gaining trust. They'd even diagrammed out how you wanted the person on the other end to feel at any stage of the call.
And it worked, scarily well. Despite the fact that I'm an introvert and was painfully shy and lacking in social skills. I winced before making every call. I'd sit there and have to breathe to calm myself before dialling even the first digit.
Way too often when people complain that their product isn't ready to sell, it's because they try to sell it on price and feature bullet lists without building any kind of rapport and trust first. That's hard enough in person, when people have far more to judge you on.
But if you cold call, if the person on the other side does not trust you, you could not even get them to accept cash from you for free.
If you don't get them excited about you, no feature list in the world is going to get them to buy it from you, because all their defences will be set to "full nuclear deterrent".
But if you get them to trust you, they'll often go out of their way to give you all the information you need to successfully sell it to them. Sometimes that mean you go away with a list of changes you need to make to your product because you genuinely wasn't ready. But if you get people to be excited about you, sometimes you can even get them to pay for some of those changes as custom development.
What's the reason for the gratuitous insult to people with an mba? It's quite a prevalent theme on HN. I'm an mba, and it's an offensive stereotype. I've noticed over the years that it's one of the more common strawmen that commenters like to use on HN. I did an mba at Harvard many years ago, and I would suggest that the level of entrepreneurial hustle among a typical cohort is far higher than that in a typical engineering program. It doesn't take much googling to find lists of mba's who've founded prominent companies in the valley or elsewhere. Anyone doing that would discover that your slam is nothing more than ignorance or just plain bias for whatever reason.
I guess the perception is that MBAs are trained to become a part of an already established traditional business and not a ground-breaking start up, their skills are specifically trained to support the current form of corporations. This notion is supported by entrepreneurship courses from people like Steve Blank. Moreover, MBAs are perceived as being unable to grasp the technological advancement, "getting in the way" of technology and insisting on leading because they have such a degree and not because of their real-world skills (and often insisting on non-sensical and "trendy" priorities), and this sentiment is pretty common amongst typical techies.
That perception is not entirely without merit, but it's a little dated. Steve Blank, fwiw, teaches and lectures at the MBA programs at both Stanford and Berkeley. MBA programs, like those and many others, are actively embracing his methodology, and methodologies like his.
Modern, top-tier MBA programs are increasingly driven by entrepreneurship, and less by traditional, hidebound business courses and corporate line-management skills. A lot has changed, and much of it changed in reaction to the embarrassments of the late '90s. Furthermore, engineers make up an increasingly large percentage of MBA cohorts these days; the old MBA/engineer dichotomy could use a refresh. The two skill sets -- engineering and analytical business strategy -- are often quite complementary. MBA programs have recognized as much, and today, being an engineer is a serious advantage in an MBA curriculum.
That's not to say you won't find your fair share of entitled, naive, or opportunistic MBA students in any given program. They're still around. But their numbers are dwindling, because many industries (finance and consulting notwithstanding) have realized they don't want that type. In time, these people will become the exceptions, and not the rule. That may already be the case at many MBA programs.
I'm not here to play apologist for the reputation MBAs have earned in the tech world. A lot of it has been deserved. At the same time, a lot of it is no longer as fair or accurate an assessment as it once was.
It's an HN thing. You just have to ignore it - it's based on ignorance not malice.
I'm an "MBA type" running a very early-stage startup and I am only too painfully aware that cold-calling is the way forward to get our first few hundred sales. Somehow we spend so much time reading about digital marketing, and optimising this sign-up flow, and A:B testing this and that, that we forget that a significant number of users can be persuaded to use your product just by being compelling and enthusiastic.
Pure "cold calling" isn't the only way (but I've been there too) predictablerevenue.com/book changed the course of my first company by helping us fail faster. We built some internal tools to support the 'Cold Calling 2.0' process he lays out in the book and when we realized our product wasn't sellable, we pivoted our company around the tools we built.
6 months in, we're doing more revenue each month than we did all of last year.
I was going to say, the other source I find really good at the moment is http://saastr.com/, but I now see they are the same author. Thanks for linking - I'll check that book out. I'll be the 1st to admit I need all the help I can get to teach myself to be good at sales.
Because to us developers, we've seen a lot of business folks who just don't get what it is we do. Unrealistic expectations, no concept of technical debt, endless pushes for solid deadlines despite being told things won't happen on those dates, no understanding of what it takes to scale things past a certain level, etc, etc, etc.
If you're an MBA with a CS degree, or even simply someone who has actually done your share of boots on the ground dev work, this attitude probably doesn't apply to you. MBAs have a perception, rightfully so I think, of not really understanding what happens to turn all of their great ideas into working software. There's also nothing like company wide (or god forbid, external) emails promising features by a specific date without having consulted developers on timelines, or worse, having consulted them on the timeline without taking into consideration that it requires moving everything else they're working on down the line to meet that deadline. "Oh, it's just adding a textbox here, plugging it into a formula, and spitting it out over here here and here, how hard can it be? An hour tops."
Hey, i am not an MBA, but working on my start up, i feel there is a NEED for some formal business training. I mean there are so many businees things I am trying to figure out and i feel I can't be the only one doing this. They must have come up with formal standardized processes for this now. And i am sure they teach you all that stuff during an MBA
That dude always gives really bland, re-read advice (lol at his jaw-dropping at some random cold-calling people, sounds super privileged to me, and he always insults folks while he's at it). King of the Aspies here at HN.
I considered doing an MBA once, and see the value. The issue is not MBA's per se, but that there are a bunch of people taking MBA courses, especially at lower tier schools, that are essentially all about hustle without any underlying substance. Think the pointy haired boss from Dilbert.
Simple advice: if somebody expresses even a slight interest in your product keep calling until you get firm "no - I don't want your product" (preferably not yelling at you). And founder(s) MUST BE doing that 'till company has maybe 5 to 6 employees. Even if founders are not "good in sales". When company is early, there is no "good in sales": it is just if your product solves the problem or not.
Anyone who thinks cold calling doesn't work is living in a bubble. It is still the quickest way to reach your prospects and one of the most effective forms of marketing when you crunch the math properly... http://affordablemarketinglists.com/why-cold-calling-works-i...
Beyond the value that you get from whatever sales from cold calling, it's a character building experience. It sucks, it's a grind, but you're definitely a more resilient person after dogging through 200 phone calls where no one wants to talk to you.
Cold calling is one of the hardest jobs in the world. The people who are good at it, and can think on their feet, are worth their weight in gold. Maybe even worth their weight in bitcoins.
In addition, people are socialized to avoid giving insult, so even if they hate your product they won't tell you to your face. If all the user feedback you're collecting is positive but you're not seeing user uptake, you're probably not getting honest feedback.
That's why I always tell them to get an LOI. Often people will say, "that sounds great, let us know when it's ready", and the founder will mistakenly think that's a sale. Even asking someone to sign a non-binding LOI forces a lot more honesty.
This was one of the most helpful pieces of advice I ever got as a founder.
Pre-product, when customers would say "Yes, I would buy this," we asked them to sign a non-binding LOI to that effect.
Nowadays, if a prospect says they'll buy when we have feature X, we ask them to sign a modified customer contract that says they don't have to pay until we mutually agree that the feature is done.
It has saved countless developer months spent on features that were not the real reason the customer didn't want to buy. And it sometimes causes the prospect to start saying, "well, actually, the issue is..." and then you can get the real feedback.
Forcing to a yes or no is key. I prefer yes, can manage no, but I have no way to manage maybe, it just closes other options without delivering results.
Here is what I found when I was out selling: The only thing worse than getting a no is getting nothing.
At least with No, you get feedback and that is valuable. The only way you can get to "no" or "yes" is by pushing the customer to give you an answer and people in general are hesitant to be that pushy.
As a former cofounder on the technical side I ran into this exact situation with my cofounders. Do you have any advice for past me to encourage selling and discourage "networking" activities in a way that doesn't look like the tech person is telling the business person how to do business things?
Partner with proven ethical sales people rather than B.S. artists. As a technical person working a job, the best way for you to meet such people is to work with them in a technical capacity. If your current job doesn't give you opportunities to work with the best sales people in your company (including traveling with them to meet customers), find one that does.
And if you are a cofounder, whether technical or not, you are a business person first. If you aren't sharing your opinions on the best way to sell to your prospects you aren't doing your most important job as a founder.
I'd second this, I remember something that really struck a chord with me was Eric Ries saying, in a LeanConf Interview session that a founder does whatever is needed for a company to survive first and foremost, and the technical aspect is just the fact that you have more experience in that area.
Well, if they have to be told that networking is not sales, is not bringing money in, then you shouldn't worry about it looking like you are telling them how to do business things. You're just telling them to do business things.
I have to say there are so many conversations I have (usually consulting with someone looking to do a startup) and one of the first things that comes up regardless of the market/problem is "maybe we could do some machine learning..." and I immediately think "you're doing it wrong".
I didn't start making significant sales in my businesses until I learned to stop focusing on the tech stuff and just throw together a manual process and start working on selling.
One way to get that direct feedback is through usability tests of your product. All I mean by that is conducting somewhat-structured conversations with prospects as they explore your product.
If you want to start doing usability testing I'd recommend getting a copy of Steve Krug's Rocket Surgery Made Easy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-yourself/dp...). It will probably take you less than an hour to read and will stop you making the basic mistakes I see folk new to usability testing make.
One of the hardest things is seeing this happen, because there can be a lot of pride and hubris associated with doing good PR, biz dev etc. A lot of the time this comment, which is true and I can't emphasis it enough, will hit a wall of resistance for whatever reason.
While this makes sense, if you use what you learn doing sales to actually improve your product (or the pitch, engine of growth, etc.) then you're back to doing marketing.
This sounds like another cop out. If you really have a good product, get a list of customers who'd benefit from it, then start calling. You'll learn a lot about how good your product actually is.
You don't exactly get such lists. We don't have a filter for customers with needs. So the best option is do an manual filtering. This can save valuable time for the sales time.
Bollocks. If you can't - at least in broad terms - describe the kind of business/consumer that would benefit from your product, then are you really ready to start selling? And if you can describe them - then surely you can get a rough idea of where they hang out, who they are, etc.
Otherwise you are just throwing darts blindly and hoping they hit.
A lot of people would argue that this is a key part of understanding your market. If you don't have a such a list, it probably makes sense to hustle, cold-call, talk to people you know closer to the industry, etc (i.e., exactly the same steps people are describing as "sales") to get one.
The problem is an outsourced lead gen company will not understand what signifies a good lead if you don't, and they will call people and pick up on the wrong things.
Using outsourced lead gen. is great if you can describe exactly how their staff can identify what makes a good lead, and can follow them up closely to give feedback about which leads were good and which weren't, and why. But unless you've done the whole process yourself first, you're unlikely to know exactly how to best instruct them.
