Lessons from a Dell Executive who Joined a YC Startup | Hacker News Reader

Lessons from a Dell Executive who Joined a YC Startup

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39 pointsjeremymims15 comments

Congrats on jumping from sales at a large multi-national to a startup. I've move into progressively smaller companies (Now running a very small startup) and the smaller they are the more full of life they have seemed to be. This is the way it should be.

Although I cringed at reading a couple of the lines here, specifically the book on sales and clearly defining roles. I have tried something similar in my past and I consider it to be one of my mistakes. I like creating structure around chaos but I've found these methodologies to be the bane of a startup or small company's culture and ability to move forward. They're like poison. Do they work in larger corporations? I think so. Maybe. I've used some of them successfully (Also consider this to be among my many mistakes). But everyone you deal with is much more apathetic, they're willing to tolerate more and/or will just ignore it. In a startup everything is much more sensitive and I find that excessive structure and process kills, well, everything.

I have spent a fair bit of time in sales at different levels (Retail to long cycle million dollar B2B) and I cringe at these books and training seminars. Going on the road and selling with someone good in real-time is far more valuable than any book or seminar. The good reps that I've seen already do the things they teach at some level naturally and few of them have read books or gone to a ton of seminars (I have witnessed one or two cases where a well performing rep followed these things religiously but seemed successful in spite of them not because of them).

Now that I've effectively ragged on your approach (Which I really can't tell exactly what it is from this simple blog post, I'm hinging it all on two things I read - I apologize if it's not an accurate representation of your approach), you may be right and I may be wrong. There doesn't seem to be one right way...

I don't think Lamar would disagree that going into the field is more valuable than any book or seminar. In fact, that's pretty much where all of the sales strategies we use are battle-tested and refined. As a startup, in many cases we've opted to hire someone without the immediate skillset (out of college) but who has potential to succeed. We need a common vocabulary, a common set of expectations, and a knowledge base to work from.

Books like this one are the net, not the trapeze act.

I think a lot of the HN crowd will read this and cringe at what they see. Remember, this is sales. It's about "programming with humans". A developer does effectively the same thing with the systems they build. A VP of sales is trying to build a system as well.

The corporate culture is important no matter the department, but you have to remember that sales guys are very different animals. They'll do whatever it takes to make the sale. It's the burnout you need to manage.

By the same logic, you should be able to "program with programmers", and apply the same thinking to teams of developers. It's exactly this MBAness that HN rails against. I'm not saying one paradigm is superior to the other, but I would caution against the facile sort of thinking that places developers above other mere mortals. It's tempting to think that we need to be able to spread our wings and realize our potential, while they are best managed and regimented in a programatic fashion, but that sort of distinction requires an argument that seems to be lacking.

If we acknowledge that a sales force can benefit from this kind of regimentation, then we must either allow for the same to be true of developers, or offer a convincing argument as to why it can't be.

Programming is an inherently creative act. Sales isn't always. The goal with most sales organizations is to replicate a process that works on a regular basis and at scale. Programmers are composers, most sales teams are like musicians in the orchestra. Both are really important to making the music happen. One is creating processes. One is executing on it.

Sounds like he's going against all the things that make a startup fun. Reading a 'sales bible' sure isn't on my list of exciting things to do when I join/create a startup.

I think you're being harsh. This is no different from someone making people read Steve Blank's book when they join or some other book (a very common practice). Sales is hard.

With sales, in the very beginning you can just work in whichever way makes the most sense and test many different things out, not worrying too much about process. Mark Suster calls this "evangelical sales" http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/12/startup-sales-...

Though as a sales team scales, a sales team need to become more process driven so that the company can keep better track of everything that is going on and make sure that everything can be kept track of and organized.

If you're going to do sales, you need some kind of sales religion whether you read a bible or not.

If you're not doing sales...

We have lots of fun. In fact, in many ways, processes like these allow for our team to focus on innovating and doing cool things instead of just "winging it" every time.

Clearly Sandler Sales Tech and just winging it are not the only two options. Understandably, it's important to get your sales team up to speed, and using various sales systems might help, but the team itself should really be the focus in which to discover the speed. Mentoring, performance transparency, strategic incentives, and regular recognition of top performers will have more benefits that some 'off the shelf' system. What I found most revealing was that when the sales team was flying blind without a marketing plan, no matter what system they were using (hello cold calls?) they were spinning their wheels. Instead, building a comprehensive marketing / sales program resulted in better client outreach. This reinforces the basic fact that every product or service should have a marketing plan attached to it to lay the groundwork for the sales process that follows. And that question is simply answered by asking 'Who wants it, and how will we best let them know about it?'. To that answer, I doubt - cold calls 'brrr' - will ever be a top choice. Otherwise, thanks for sharing your team members stories.

ps. here are the 2 starred reviews from the 'you can't teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar' book (what kind of title is that anyways? Surely you CAN teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar. How better to teach a kid? By having them read a book? Maybe it should be called 'you can't teach a kid to ride a bike by reading a book'. Regardless, my point is that some of these concerns appear rather valid (though I've not read the book myself.)

http://www.amazon.com/Cant-Teach-Ride-Bike-Seminar/product-r...

Startups aren't about "fun" and "excitement", startups are about building scalable businesses that solve problems.

You might not find sales or accounting fun but they're critical parts to running a startup. Don't join/start a startup because you think you'll like the startup culture because when the reality of hard-work and stress hit you you'll end up giving up.

It sounds like he's trying to turn a fun Austin startup into Dell. For those who aren't from Austin, Dell is basically the worst place you can end up as an Austin tech person. It's the bottom of the barrel -- the employer of last resort.

He's saying to document everything and to lock in a rigid process. That makes absolutely no sense for a startup. A startup is all about trying new things and giving up on them if they don't work out. Dumping huge amounts of resources into documentation and process runs completely counter to that idea.

Hardly turning a fun Austin startup into Dell. We are a fun Austin startup. But Dell has built a very effective Business sales channel.

And nothing we do is "rigid". It is documented and we're learning and making changes all the time. We're a B2B company that's figured out some very difficult sales challenges (like how to sell into the local space effectively). I'd bet money that we try more things more often than most startups because we're trying to optimize solutions for software and human performance that no one has been successful at before.

Think of it this way. If you never had analytics on your sites or applications, how would you recommend scaling?

Minor nitpick: I cannot scroll the text using the page down key without missing half a line.

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