This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.
I spend a lot of time with early-stage B2B software founders in my role at PHX Ventures. All of them are trying so hard to build and sell their products. It's the 24X7 build and sell grind.
I remember those days from my own Founder journey at CampusLogic.
Most of us Founders can't wait to have enough cash and traction to hire professional, quota-carrying salespeople to accelerate our growth.We believe that if only we had real salespeople, all of our growth problems would go away.
But often, Founders fail to see that the best salesperson they will ever have - and I mean ever - already works at the company. It's you, the Founder.
You may not be great at building sales processes, hiring SDRs/AEs, or doing everything needed to scale and lead a top-performing sales team. But you, the Founder, are probably the best at selling your product. And that will likely always be true.
No sales rep will ever understand the ideal customer profile better than you.
No sales rep will ever be as curious and do better discovery than you.
No sales rep will ever know more about your product than you.
No sales rep will ever overcome prospect objections better than you.
No sales rep will ever project as much as much confidence as you.
No sales rep will see your product's future better than you.
You will probably always be the sales rep you will ever have. Ever. To be clear, hiring an awesome VP of Sales, attracting incredible salespeople, and building a professional sales organization is absolutely a requirement to achieve venture scale.
In the early days, however, Founder-led sales can, and probably should, persist for longer than most of us think. I think Founder-led sales can work to at least $1m in ARR, but maybe even $2m-$3m in ARR.
If you can't sell your own product in the early days, I don't believe anyone else can either. You may not see yourself as a salesperson and you may not like it that much, but you are still the best salesperson your company has.And that will probably always be true.
