Founder-led sales.
Why should founders do the selling themselves in the early days?
At this stage it's not only sales that matter - you need to understand your customer deeply, improve your product and build a repeatable sales process.
In early-stage startups nobody understands the product, the market and the pain better than the founder. On top of that, your drive and enthusiasm give customers confidence.
You may not be the best salesperson, but you can settle many things (price, deadline, extra features) on the spot, and at this stage that matters a lot.
• Define your Ideal Customer Profile and start by talking to - and selling to - those people first.
• Study your customer's pain deeply and don't rush to "pitch" your product's features.
• Give a clear value proposition. Use simple words the customer understands, not jargon or fashionable buzzwords (AI, Cloud, Blockchain and so on).
• Then draw up a list of potential customers and look for ways to reach them. That can be LinkedIn, email, acquaintances, events, cold calls or knocking on doors.
• Talk to customers yourself, directly, and during the conversation talk more about their problem than about your solution. Don't rush to demo or to talk about your product's features. You can demo once you're sure they are your customer.
Early sales = early feedback. It helps you enormously to improve the product and set up sales/marketing.
Once you've closed the first 30-50 sales, document the process as a "playbook":
- Ideal Customer Profile
- Outreach, discovery and sales scripts
- Demo format
- Pricing and onboarding
• Only after you've found a repeatable sales process can you hire the first salesperson or think about building a sales team.
“Founders don’t just sell. They discover, shape, and validate a market.”
