Jessica Livingston: Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing

So many founders have a great idea but can’t figure out how to sell it. Second-time founders know that they shouldn’t even bother with an idea if it is not sell-able. Marketing risks force you to face the truth: Do you know enough about your market to know how to sell it and who will buy it?

Fantastic startup advice from Marc Andreessen 15 years ago. https://t.co/slnUkIGB5j

1. Most founders are bad at growth, so if you're amazing at it, the advantage is significant. Consider: Most startups die not because founders are bad or products suck, but because they couldn't figure out how to get anyone to try them.

There are two reasons founders resist going out and recruiting users individually. One is a combination of shyness and laziness. They'd rather sit at home writing code than go out and talk to a bunch of strangers and probably be rejected by most of them. But for a startup to succeed, at least one founder (usually the CEO) will have to spend a lot o... See more