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Comment by xwdv | Hacker News Reader

Yea this is important. A dev should absolutely not be picking up any kind of phone and talking to any kind of customer. This is a job for sales people. If some nervous dev could manage to make any kind of sale at all, then that means a trained professional salesperson can do probably 10x that much.

Don’t think just because you are very smart you can do sales. This is like business people trying to “learn coding” so they can put together some huge product. It doesn’t work well and isn’t scalable.

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This reads like you're suggesting to not even try. IME trying new things is a great way to learn. Also, if a dev can close a few sales, just the first few, then they'll know how to help their sales staff.

Try a little, see if you can grow.

I wish people didn’t have such a knee jerk reaction to my advice, but for many years I too believed a dev should at least try to wear many hats.

All it took was seeing how professionals always do the job far better to change my mind. It doesn’t matter if a dev picks up some skills, if you plan to be a dev then a dev is all you’ll ever be, focus on the development and let sales worry about sales.

I see a lot of founders struggle with delegation. It seems they would rather juggle things they don’t do well instead of learning to trust and onboard people who can do things they don’t specialize in.

I read your original comment as steeped in sarcasm that a single developer should even attempt to sully their good name by engaging in marketing. Actually surprised you were being serious.

OP has a product he enjoyed making, is providing real world utility, and that he isn't trying to turn in to a billion dollar company. The obvious solution is for him to pick up a phone, send out a few emails, and generally reach out to the local business community instead of sitting back and waiting to see if it will magically make money and he can hire a sales person to do those tasks instead for his hobby project that has grown too expensive for a single person but would barely qualify for justification at a business.

Context is important here, and while your advice it valid in some situations, it's not valid in all situations, and specifically its not valid in this one.

I get that once a business grows to a certain point it needs "professionals" to do some of the tasks. Ideally start by hiring people with skills you don't have. Sales is a skill.

That said many people have more the one skill. Context matters. I write libraries for programmers. I attend trade events where I talk to, and sell to programmers. I do a lot of marketing in this space. I have an authenticity that a non-programmer does not have, and I believe that is reflected in our sales.

In this case the developer is perfectly capable of picking up the phone. They may or may not maximise potential income (but that's not their stated goal). If there's enough demand then they can pivot to a sales person later on.

Incidentally, I would likely figure out who does the marketing for the local businesses you see. They buy the ads, not the business directly. They're easier to talk to (they -want- more exposure opportunities) and they may bring multiple customers to the table.

This isn’t a multi-billion dollar business selling ad space. It’s a one (wo)man project. That one person absolutely can pick up the phone. Will they be as effective as a professional? Probably not, but they only need $50 a day!

I think you might be projecting a bit here with the whole "nervous devs should never try anything other than write code"..

OP can totally give some basic marketing a go. The product isn't turning even creating revenue - hiring marketing now, without at-least testing the water himself would be silly.

Lots of devs out there have great social skills which can translate well to sales. Sales is primarily communication and human connection and plenty of devs are capable of that.

Lots of devs start in sales because those jobs/careers are incredibly prevalent. Think basic sales jobs like retail, call centers, etc.

Lots of business people unironically "learn coding" to great success. Some even build "huge products" that solve big problems.

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Anecdotally, I know people who fall into all of these categories. I don't think we should condemn people to one function/talent... and, I don't think we need to talk down to cross-functional devs or business people.

It's possible that selling advertising could be different, but in most domains, it's pretty well-accepted in startup land that founders (including technical founders) will have the highest close rates at the company, regardless of whether they're smooth talkers or have past sales experience. That's because no one you can hire is going to know or care as much about your product as you, the founder, and it shows. Professional sales people are not hired because they're better at sales, but because you can only scale so far with founders doing all the selling.

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