Why successful founders love to sell
To build something people want, you must ask them for things
According to Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, a CEO does three things¹:
- Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders.
- Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company.
- Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.
Minneapolis serial entrepreneur and bootstrapping evangelist Rob Walling describes leading a successful startup as having three stages²:
"In the early days, you're building a product. Once you've built something people are willing to pay for (no easy task), you work on building a business. Once that flywheel is going, you move on to building a company. Very few founders excel at (or even enjoy) all three stages."
There are many, many insights to be gleaned from these two frames of thinking, but the one I want to highlight here is the inevitability of selling as a founder; not just to customers, but employees, partners, investors, and communities as well.
Product vs. technology
Most idea stage Indie Founders are overly focused on their technology. The early stage is when perfectionism and fear of rejection are most at play. This cocktail of self-consciousness makes most founders extremely reluctant to do any marketing or cold calling. They would rather not talk to anybody about what they're working on until it's "ready," so they obsess over building (and pitching!). I've previously written about how Indie Founders need to ditch the pitch and start building. But it's actually more complicated than that.
According to Rob's framework, building is only the first step of many to starting a company, and only half of the first step at that. To build product means to build something that people are willing to pay for. That's the difference between product and mere technology. Recall the #1 reason startups fail in the last Mindset: building something that doesn't serve a market need.
No founder makes something that people want or need by getting lucky. They do it by constantly asking, building, changing, and then asking again. There's lots of technology that gets built in a vacuum and never sees the light of day. Product, by definition, can't be.
From product to business to company
Now let's look at what happens after a founder has successfully built a product—something people are willing to pay for—per Fred's framework. The entire job is to sell, sell, sell! Whether or not you plan to make the full transition from founder to CEO, growing a startup to scale is a highly social endeavor. Your team needs to be sold on your vision. Your future team needs to be sold on your vision. The partners you work with and the community your work affects need to believe in it too.
As for making sure there's always enough cash in the bank, I've already shared my opinion on how founders need to think beyond investors (who would undoubtedly need to be sold). But even if the money comes from alternative sources or customer revenue, it will still come from people who need to be told about what you are doing and brought onboard to seeing its value.
It gets less embarrassing
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, has a famous quote that I'm a big proponent of:
"If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late."
Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, offers a corollary:
"No matter how long you wait to release your first version, you will be embarrassed by it."³
The process of turning an idea into a product is at best embarrassing. At worst, it can be downright terrifying. On the other side, however, is finding people who are as excited about what you're building as you are. And the more you share and iterate, the easier the whole process gets; the better and better your product becomes.
If reading this chapter gave you a sinking feeling of recognition, know that it's never too late (or too early!) to start talking to people, and it doesn't have to be big. What kind of people—customers, employees, partners—might your startup be interested in in the future? Odds are you'll describe at least a couple of people that you know and trust. Ask one of those people for 15 minutes of their time to chat about your idea. It will probably be embarrassing. But your future self will thank you.
Things I've spent a very long time working on have ended up not resonating with people. On the flip side, things that didn't take me much time to build, and by no means were the ultimate expression of what was possible, have been hits. The work you put into your offering means nothing if no one's buying. There's only one way to find out if that's the case, so you might as well put your energy there—on sharing.
To learn more about how successful founders think, read my four-part guide on The Indie Founder Mindset: A Guide to Unlearning VC.
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About the author
Zack Steven, CEO of Cloudburst, is a curious optimist, Dad, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He has a degree in Studio Art and is a fan of good design, big ideas, and strong communities.
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