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Lecture

Sales pre-PMF should be done by the founders.

Y Combinator
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  • Early-stage B2B startup founders who cannot sell their own products are unlikely to succeed in hiring external personnel to fulfill that function.
  • While founders may perceive recruiting talented salespeople as a faster alternative to self-selling, they will likely apply the same logic to externalizing other roles such as design, legal, and accounting.
  • Sales activities preceding the achievement of product-market fit are distinct from those following it, necessitating founder involvement due to requirements for vision, customer credibility, experimentation, and tight feedback loops with the product team.
  • The outlook indicates that the pre-product-market-fit sales role is fundamentally designed for founders rather than external hires.