Peter Pan Syndrome – The Startup to Company Transition (2010) | Hacker News Reader

Peter Pan Syndrome – The Startup to Company Transition (2010)

steveblank.com

60 pointsbootload7 comments

I find this very relatable. We currently lease space from a startup that is a little bit ahead of us, but our revenue are catching up quickly. My co-founder is an aggressive salesman, so much so I have to push hard to keep up product. Which is good, we are moving quickly.

But the company we work next to is having trouble with sales. None of the founders have sales experience and then they hired a sales person straight out of college. That kid is an excellent guy, he tries as hard as he can, but he has no idea what he's doing. The number one thing holding this company back is the founders being willing to look outside their bubble and hire an experienced salesman who is going to make them uncomfortable, tell them they are wrong and move their business forward. But at the same time, I know it's hard. We hired a head of Operations totally different than us, but still fit our core values. And she pushes us all the time. And we do the same. And while it's been hard, it's definitely made us better.

This is pretty common - many startups have literally nothing compelling to offer many experienced, successful sales person with deep domain knowledge and networks. So you are much more likely to end up with something else, unless you are lucky.

I find this happens quite a bit in any organization that needs to develop competence in an area they aren't already experts at. One of the first companies I worked for was trying to get good at product management. They kept hiring a bunch of smooth talking inexperienced people who crashed and burned spectacularly. They didn't know enough about product management to hire good product management.

You need domain knowledge, you need sales, and you need marketing.

At my last gig, i asked my boss about developing a mailing list. he said it was "done". I didn't push further, but thats just not how mailing lists work.

find a channel or a few channels and develop a presence. You're building a relationship, not just selling something.

get their info. ask for it. on a web form, on the phone, and in person. Keep in touch with them. Do drip marketing. Get them involved.

Word of mouth, blog posts, tweets and facebook pages only carry you so far. For some, its plenty far enough. For others, they need to inject more hustle; cold calls, chance meetings, going door to door if need be.

Know how to hustle your customers; what they want, what they need, and what they'll pay.

Absolutely. The right marketing people will take that entire lead gen/relationship building/RFP process to a whole new level.

I think the end of the article sums it all up very nicely: "But first you need to become a domain expert. Spend a year in Washington". They basically have no deep knowledge of the domain in which they operate and how to win the sales game. However brilliant you are, if you don't understand the rules of the game:

-> you are not playing the right game

--> you cannot win

More like,

-> you are not playing the right game --> you will only win by luck

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