Tutorial
When you’re pre-product market fit, sales is a job for the founders.
- Early-stage startup founders are positioned as the sole individuals capable of effectively selling their products during the initial phase.
- Founders unable to personally execute sales at the outset are projected to fail in hiring others to perform this function.
- While founders often anticipate that recruiting existing talented salespeople will accelerate sales similar to professional roles like designers or lawyers, this expectation conflicts with the fundamental nature of the role.
- Sales efforts prior to achieving product-market fit are expected to remain fundamentally entrepreneurial, requiring vision, customer credibility, experimentation, and tight feedback loops with product builders.
- The pre-product-market fit sales role is inherently designated for founders rather than hired sales personnel, as the process relies on founder-specific attributes that external hires typically lack.