Why Aren't Salespeople Running Software Companies?

We tried this before, as an industry. It didn't work. There's a reason investors pattern match away from sales people as founder &#38; CEO of a startup. Sales people are often too good at selling themselves and not so good at getting product out the door. Selling ahead of the curve right up until the point you've burned your market with missed ship dates.<p>Having done both sales (taken product to market leading position from scratch) and development, I am convinced it's easier to add sales leadership to take a sold product to market than to add developers and fix a badly built product that happens to have a good sales leader running the show. IMHO ymmv.

Seriously, this article made front page from someone who openly admits he is not from the software industry yet questions how it operates?<p>Simply put: Software companies aren't all the same. Some sell to consumers (B2C), others to businesses (B2B), and others sell to both.<p>You won't find many B2C companies with sales people, due to the cost of sale outweighing the return from one customer. Oppositely you won't find many B2B companies without them, as cost of sale is built into the price (read up on high vs low involvement products if you need to know more). B2C's typically rely on marketers instead, as they can help spread a message across a broader prospect base, keeping the cost of sale down.<p>Sales is a set of activities a person does to compel someone else to sign a contract. So all those B2B startups probably do have sales people (eg people selling), just that they may be the founders or developers helping prospects with the hope of them converting to customers.<p>Finally, the reason salespeople aren't running software companies? Depends what you mean - no they may not be founders. But once a company is growing, and trying to grow faster - show me which company doesn't seek advice from their sales and/or marketers on how this should be achieved.

Yes, you should launch without a product. Yes, you should get orders. Yes to all of that. But you are missing an important thing. A lot of <i>world changing</i> companies out there started without a business plan, much less a sale. It was about trying to see what could be done with X. Sales people don't get this. Tech is not only about making a quick buck, but about creating new things altogether. Sometimes, those new things can't simply be sold from the start. Sometimes they are not even defined. Just an idea.

This post gave me a headache. I guess yelling BLACK! WHITE! When something is a drab gray gets page views, but don't people get tired of having the same arguments? Incidentally, I think engineering culture is very important- the trick is to have engineering permeate and bolster strong sales and marketing, not to handicap one in favor of the other.

&#62; I'm brand new to the software industry and while I know nothing about software...<p>Then why are you giving advice on how to run software companies?

I was given some advice 10 years into my career that I wish I'd heard fresh out of college. When you are interviewing with a company, learn as much as you can about the career backgrounds of the executives. It often dictates how much influence your department has on operations. Not surprisingly, the worst places I've worked had the biggest disparities between the president and the primary skill group needed to create the product.<p>It wasn't that these companies weren't profitable - some were, some weren't. They just weren't enjoyable places to work. When you have to explain or justify things that shouldn't need explaining or justifying, it really drains morale.

Yeah. Well, can all sales people run businesses?<p>Let's start from the basic questions: 1. How do you know X is more difficult than Y technically. How do you trust somebody who says X or Y? Should they sell you the idea because, ya know, you are a sales person?<p>2. What makes a sales person? Ability to sell a product A? Is selling A different from B? Do you specialize in A? How are you different from somebody who too can sell A? Do they need a degree to do it? Can our average car sales man do it? Yes or no, please give me your reasons..<p>3. Can you give me good examples of sales people running any other businesses? Businesses that, ya know, don't suck.<p>4. Salespeople usually do well in business where the technology is mature. Ya know, not long ago, there was this "fruit" company that was brought to its knees by a "cola" sales guy. And there is a Seattle company that is getting off rails slowly.

<i>"My takeaways from exploring this topic and advice to other marketers that want to have software people work for them is:<p>1. Realize that you have the most leverage going from version 0 to 1.0. We're also best suited for software products that are not being sold to other software people.<p>2. Find out how to get traction without the help of any software person by using free and existing and doing things offline.<p>3. Have very specific goals for you market tests. Also, relay on something that is more tangible then "readers" or "users". Cash is the best kind of market research. These two posts are great about how to test markets and get pre-sales. Close your Sales Funnel and Sell a Product Before It's Ready<p>4. Build REAL RELATIONSHIPS within your market."</i><p>I think that you are talking more about <i>starting</i> a company rather than <i>running</i> a company.

I agree with some of things you say, but with some don't. I agree with the fact that one should verify that there is market for his idea, but you don't need to have sales people for this.<p>Good engineers want to avoid working at companies, where engineering department is not on the top - on example they need to explain things, which shouldn't need explanation, or their boss see them as cost centre, not a profit centre and seeks to replace them by cheaper alternative. If you don't have good engineers, innovation of your product stales and someone comes to steal your market, no matter how awesome sales people you have.<p>You mention that sales people are more important in reaching phase 1.0 in B2B companies, in getting these first 1000 consumers. Let's get two hypothetical examples: - Company A, which creates bad product, but sales manage to sell it to 1000 consumers. - Company B, which creates awesome product, but their are no good sales behind, so it is gaining first customers very slowly. Then over the time first customers of company B will tell their friends that product is awesome and it will eventually reach 1000 customers and keep increasing exponentially (these new customers will bring their friends and post excellent reviews online). It is run by good engineers so they will analyse and listen to their users and keep making product better. On the other hand, company A will get terrible reputation, these 1000 customers will realize shortcomings in the product and stop using it.<p>Fact that you created successful company being a sales person doesn't mean that it is better to have companies run by sales people. One example doesn't make it for general rule. Do you know a company run by engineers executing the same idea to do the comparison?<p>You cite the fact that majority of companies fail because of lack of users instead of lack of ability to create a product. It doesn't mean that their failure wasn't caused by bad product - they could created something that worked, but wasn't good enough. This fact doesn't mean that they would succeed if they would have rock-star sales people on the board. Some ideas are just not fit for market and even placing hundreds of sales people doing the calls won't help.

Hey Guys, My name is Chris Williams. I wrote the post :) If anyone wants to connect, I would love to. My email is chris@cammpus.com<p>My buddy just let me know that this post was picked up ~6 month late.<p>I'm looking forward to addressing everyone's comments.<p>The reason I'm qualified to talk about this is because I started a software company and have grown it to ~$400k in revenue and profitable in 18 months. Why? Largely, not listening to "startup" advice, and SELLING. It's key that this is a B2B company not selling to other software people (B2C and software-to-software sales are much different than B2B and software-to-outside-world sales)<p>Again, I'm my intent is not to insult the software industry, just say the most of the advice seems incomplete from my perspective.<p>Chris

What companies <i>do</i> salespeople actually run? Amway maybe? Salespeople sell. Executives run the company. Sometimes executives used to be salespeople, but there are many who came by another path.

This article inaccurately lumps all software companies into one bucket. As rohamg points out, he makes a black and white argument about engineering vs. sales politics, while the reality is that this differs a lot by company.<p>In fact, many of the larger software companies seem to be driven primarily by sales (including, increasingly, Google).<p>At the smaller companies (incl. startups), it absolutely makes sense for engineering to be of primary importance. At this level, being able to constantly adjust to customers' desires is essential, and an engineering emphasis helps with that.<p>This also flies in the fact of the supposed arrogance of engineers. If anything, I think sales people are the more arrogant ones: they think customers just need to be sold on a product, while engineers understand iterating on feedback is key to growth.

I think there's a pretty simple reason that a software person is more likely to be successful than a sales person. The software person can find sales people - the opposite is not generally true.<p>If you need to hire a sales person, and the candidate sells himself, you're in pretty good shape. He's obviously got some of the skills - he may not be the best, but he'll be worth hiring.<p>If you're a non-technical person looking to hire technical people, you're fighting an uphill battle. First, technical people are currently in higher demand. Its hard to find them in the first place. Next, you have very little ability to evaluate their skills. Finally, the range of abilities in technical people is larger than in most other fields, which amplifies the problem of not being able to evaluate candidates' skills.

I guess the reason is that software companies are driven and competitive by innovation which mainly comes from technical/product people.

Spelling is a factor in the board's decision

It's hard for me to take seriously any article that so consistently misuses "than" vs. "then"

It is a fairly recent development that the tech industry has acquired ways to make building a v1.0 easier. And the salespeople are looking around now, clearly able to tell the extent to which you can execute v1.0 with C-Level talent, and wondering why so many companies are still run by software people.<p>The answer I believe is: because this all used to be much harder, and you had to rely on your engineers to pull you through some tough moments. I'm afraid this is becoming less true over time. The pendulum is swinging back from technical implementation, back through design, and the power is returning to sales and marketing, IMO.<p>HOWEVER, people who can engineer marketing outcomes... those guys will keep the power.<p>TLDR; Hie thee thither to up-market positions ye men of valor!

There are tons of software companies run by sales people...they just all fail.

Umm, because your ANSI Standard sales dweeb is a Machiavellian shithead who, when given the opportunity, can't resist the temptation to chase away the golden egg laying geese.