Tony Clemendor

This is a dangerous mindset that founders need to avoid: All you need is a good product and it will sell itself. At the beginning, one of my biggest misconceptions as an engineer turned founder was thinking that your product is your only competitive advantage. I never stopped to think that sales could be a competitive advantage. In the early days at AppDynamics, we managed to grow to several million dollars in annual revenue, primarily by landing a few big accounts like Netflix. But a fellow CEO pointed out the obvious: If we ever hoped to cross the $100 million threshold someday, we needed to get scientific about sales. For other founders who want to embark on a sales education, here are some steps I took: - Accept that sales actually matter. Once a company starts growing, sales, marketing and distribution are as important as the product itself. - Commit to learning — If a software engineer can learn programming, they can learn sales. That said, I won't sugarcoat it — learning sales is a years-long process and isn't something you figure out in a day. - Study the competition — I studied companies similar to mine that were 3-5 years ahead: How did that company run its sales process, and what kind of salespeople did it recruit? - Lean on experts — We were fortunate to have hired John McMahon, a top authority on enterprise software sales, for weekly whiteboard sessions. Eventually, I also hired a VP of Sales which was one of the best decisions I made as a founder. Sales should never be an afterthought and while this education requires significant time investment, it's well worth it.