Ha ha. I once worked on a team where the "sales" people made a "partnership" with a famous company. We paid the famous company for this privilege and were able to advertise that the famous company used our product. We also agreed to do custom work on the product for the famous company for free. As part of the agreement, the "sales" people signed a contract that said that we would pay a huge penalty if we didn't deliver a certain piece of functionality in a certain time frame. After the developers discovered this, the "sales" people were informed that the functionality was impossible (as in it is a generally unsolvable problem).<p>Interestingly, when it all went bust, the company laid off all the developers and retained the "sales" people in the hope that they could somehow get some revenue flowing in. Not so funny at the time, but pretty hilarious to think back upon now. It has certainly shaped the kind of questions I ask when I interview for positions ;-).
A good salesperson not only sells the product but also an idea. This way one can get a customer partially pay for the development of the final product bringing important source of financing.<p>Having a good salesperson is very important even if the product is not yet ready. A sales
Original discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7842282" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7842282</a>
The author cites examples from Stripe and Pinterest, which are actually just anecdotes around usability testing, not recruitment of users.<p>I would argue focusing on sales puts you at risk of narrowing your scope and broader appeal.