More bootstrappers would succeed if they focused on sales rather than marketing.
More bootstrappers would succeed if they focused on sales rather than marketing. It's faster, easier, more effective, more educational, and it forces you to choose better business models and build more valuable products where you charge more.
But it's just a little bit scarier, so it's not popular.
People should talk about this A LOT more.
If accepting this statement as fact were a condition for signing up to IH, we'd see a lot more successful founders...
Surprising how rarely it comes up.
Sounds like a good idea. Any pointers to a good starting point to focus on the right things? (post, podcast, ..) ? 🙌🏻 Thanks for this insight
Nothing specific. But if you consume lots of stories, case studies, and interviews, you pick up on some patterns like this. Make sure to research while paying attention to what's effective, not what's attractive.
It's also one thing (of probably many things) that you can work backwards to if you follow some of the most oft-repeated (and ignored) startup advice: charge more, talk to your customers, do things that don't scale, etc. Sounds a lot like sales!
Gotcha, thanks for getting back on this 🙌🏻
It makes me feel like sales is more focusing towards making a viable business whereas marketing leans more towards broadcasting (with a higher risk of not being viable/useful for your business).
I'm thinking I'm going to work on my own business one day a week. Putting effort on sales to get income and using marketing as a means to gain in the long run (using shipharder.com to log what I'm doing and sharing what works and what not)... Guess this is aligned with your take on this 🤔👌🏻
Totally agree. I've been trying to teach more founders sales processes, and there's a genuine resistance. Even when they know they should be doing it.
Could you say more about the differences between sales and marketing? I'm not sure if I understand it fully right now.
Good question! I just explained it here in more detail. Hope that helps.
Awesome. Thank you Courtland!
Yes! This needs much more discussion. Would love to hear more about sales experiences for the indie dev.
This comment was deleted 8 years ago