Today we are talking about the absolute basics of sales and marketing.
1. Marketing is all about how people initially find your product. There are at least 10 different, well-used ways to reach customers, but most startups should begin with direct outreach, asking for advice. Starting within your own network and then expand out.
2. Most founders dream of building the perfect self-serve application right out of the gate, avoiding sales altogether. The reality for most, even consumer-focused founders, is that you will have to personally sell your product to at least your first 10 customers. Once that is complete, we can think about hiring or self-serve automation.
3. Whatever channels and approaches you choose, you will need to build out a pipeline. For most startups, this can be expressed in just 4 steps — How many people are finding you, how many are expressing interest, how many are trying the product, and how many become customers.
Best of luck out there.
Sterling Road invests in idea stage and pre-seed B2B startups based in the US, Canada and UK.
