newsfilter.io
Tutorial

When you’re pre-product market fit, sales is a job for the founders.

Y Combinator
Watch on YouTube →
  • Early-stage founders building B2B products possess the inherent capability to sell their own products.
  • Founders are currently the only individuals capable of effectively selling the product; hiring external sales talent is likely futile before achieving product-market fit.
  • Attempting to hire sales professionals prior to product-market fit (PMF) is counterintuitive compared to hiring for other functional roles like design, legal, or accounting.
  • Pre-PMF sales is fundamentally an entrepreneurial role distinct from post-PMF sales activities.
  • Success in the pre-PMF sales phase requires:
    • Founder-level vision and credibility with customers.
    • High-volume experimentation.
    • A tight feedback loop between sales efforts and the product development team.
  • The transcript asserts that the pre-PMF sales function is exclusively a role for founders.