Founders should personally handle sales in the early stages to deeply understand customers and maintain control over the startup's destiny. Sales is an easy skill for founders to learn as they are experts in the problem and product.
Founders need to learn sales by actively doing it themselves, not just theoretically. This gives them full control over their startup's destiny.
The sales process includes prospecting, outreach, demos, pricing, closing, and onboarding. Prioritize the easiest/best-fit customers first and use a CRM to track sales metrics.
Meeting Notes:
Getting from talking to users to getting your first startup
The "do things that don't scale" mindset is crucial in the early stages - a good product is rarely built in isolation but together with customers
Founders should be the ones handling sales themselves early on, as it helps them: Learn about their customers deeply, Have full control over the startup's destiny
Sales is one of the easiest skills for founders to learn because: They are experts in the problem they are solving, They are experts in their own product
Examples of founders who did sales themselves early on: Tony from DoorDash, Matt Hill from Skarnik, Steve Jobs
Learning sales tactics and mindset
Founders need to learn sales by actually doing it themselves, not just theoretically
Doing sales themselves gives founders full control over their startup's destiny
Sales is an easy skill for founders to pick up because: They are experts on the problem and product
Example: The Brecht founders (Pedro and Enrique) actively onboarded their first 10 customers themselves during YC