Virality is the engine that’s powered many of the biggest sites on the internet (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc). If you’re aiming to have a huge user base, user to user spreading is the most effective, if not the only way.
It amazes me the number of people trying to build consumer internet products that don't get this.
There's also people who know this but just don't get viral itself. It's one thing to know you need something and another thing to really know how to implement such a strategy. I'm a great example of this. I know I've got at least one product that people would love but I just don't get viral partly because I'm not exactly a social/share-everything-on-social-networks type of person. To me it seems like most people know the importance of viral marketing but are lost on how to actually put it into practice. I have a job where I talk to people about similar things and they come to me and say "I know I need to do the social media thing but I don't get it".
Re: Sales: it's ok if you want to stay small, but to employ people and grow a business, sales is the lifeblood.
Not all products lend themselves all that well to sales though. Consider Google. How do you sell Google? You really can't have a sales team go out and try to get people to commit to using Google search. With a lot of companies the best you can do is let people know you exist and hope they'll use you. Sales in the traditional sense is a waste. To be clear, the kind of sales I'm talking about is the kind where you have people out on the road personally interfacing with decision makers, calling people (often they're cold calls), and generally reaching out to communicate with people one on one rather than putting up ads and getting exposure which is not sales but advertising.
yes, that is meant by sales: travel, meetings, powerpoints, lunches, etc. etc. etc. I do not know, but would bet that Google "sold" Adwords program to some key publishers. It is a huge product and had a R&D budget.
you're right, there is a place for "sales" in most every company at some point in their lifecycle. In the post I was more discussing engines of growth relative to early stage startups.
Like the original author I was also speaking from the perspective of an early stage startup. I should've been clearer. I'm sure you're right about AdWords being sold that way but in the end sales, real sales, costs money that the companies don't have. It's a chicken/egg situation. You've got something people need but no ones using it because you need to pay people to sell it. In the beginning that won't work unless you're paying pure commission and even then you've got to have a really healthy margin per sale for it to work like the author says.