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by nate·16y ago·view on hn ↗
Right, as long as you have the money to hire someone to do enterprise sales, great. I'm all for hiring people smarter than me and to do things I don't want to do. But most people starting a new project don't have money to do those hires.

Look at Paul Graham. When they started viaweb, Paul had to play sales guy. I believe he mentions in at least one essay, that it's not like sales was something he was chomping at the bit to go and do. But a fledging company can't go out and hire sales guys, so he stepped up and learned how to sell his product, and realized he was actually pretty good at it.

So this advice is to all those out there with no money who are stuck waiting for someone else to make their dreams come true. That's a no good place to be, and I refuse to be in it.

2 comments
Being relentlessly resourceful doesn't always mean "do it myself". Sometimes it means you go get funding, sometimes it means finding someone to work for equity or revenue share, sometimes it means figuring out how to make money somewhere else until you afford to pay someone to do X.
I've actually found it surprisingly easy to sell our product. When you make "Something that people want"(tm) it just sells itself.

You just stand to one side and point out that they want it.