Ask HN: How to find a non-technical co-founder/sales person?

[darkhorse13]

Hey HN, so I've got a product that I feel is a good product that can sell well. I've had some sales, and some customers in the pipeline, but I also work full-time in a programming role which I very much enjoy.

Where can I find someone who wants to do sales for a software? The software itself is useful and part of a very big product category, but it's marketed extremely poorly in my opinion (marketed by me I mean).

I don't really have friends who I think will be a good fit at all. Most of them don't work in software/tech.

[lschueller]

Marketing (and Sales) for a new software product is time consuming in the beginning. I feel your pain. I've worked for a couple startups in Marketing / PR and therefore closely with the sales guys. Especially in early stage sales is hard to get a grasp on ... A lot of teams try to sweat it out by producing tons of useless content. Basically, try to figure out, what kind of person / professional will be using and paying for your product. Call the very people and talk to them, what they've liked, why the paied for it etc.. After that you will have a solid idea and be able to come up with the next few steps without investing weeks into social media and blog articles.. Phone / talkin is still the most efficient sales tool actually. Less distraction, no delay, two way communications. Hope you will find a couple of more buyers very soon!

[muzani]

"The software itself is useful and part of a very big product category, but it's marketed extremely poorly in my opinion "

Yeah, I can see the problem here lol.

Sales is quite simple - you have something that people want. You make those people aware of it and help them understand how it helps them. That's all.

These people are often looking for something and have hacked solutions themselves. They spend a great deal of time, effort, and money on this. That's your sweet spot.

The irony is you're selling something else right now - a job post as sales co-founder. Plenty of people want to start a startup, they just don't have a product to sell. Really good salespeople will want a good product. Selling a bad product often means scamming people.

You have to have the confidence in your product to make it appealing. If you can't sell it to your cofounder, they won't be able to sell it to others.

[keiferski]

I am basically that guy at a small startup: the founder dev built a great tool, but he needed help marketing it, making lead-driving content, etc.

My advice is to look for people that have worked in marketing roles at small companies and startups. This means less than 20 or 30 people total at the company. Any more than that and the roles become too specialized and not broad enough to be the generalist marketing/sales person you likely need.

These are probably not people that have worked at extremely well-funded startups or Google/Amazon/etc. Instead they are more likely to be in "less cool" industries like WordPress, boring B2B software, etc.

[cjbarber]

If you’re working on a bootstrapped company, look at your main competitors or alternatives, go to LinkedIn, find the salespeople that work there or used to work there, find their email addresses, and contact them.

[moomoo11]

Do it yourself. Most sales guys if they’re also wanting to be co-founder will try to grab CEO role from you because ultimately every human is selfish and some are greedy mfs. Especially if you don’t know them.

Sales isn’t hard.

Hire a salesperson, but you should own your sales until you feel that someone who molds with your vision is there and you can promote them then.

Don’t be so charitable with equity brah it’s your most valuable asset.

[moomoo11]

Do it yourself. Most sales guys if they’re also wanting to be co-founder will try to grab CEO role from you because ultimately every human is selfish and some are greedy mfs. Especially if you don’t know them.

Sales isn’t hard.

Hire a salesperson, but you should own your sales until you feel that someone who molds with your vision is there and you can promote them then.

Don’t be so charitable with equity brah.

[moomoo11]

Do it yourself. Most sales guys if they’re also wanting to be co-founder will try to grab CEO role from you because ultimately every human is selfish and some are greedy mfs. Especially if you don’t know them.

Sales isn’t hard.

[dapperdrake]

Just went through something like this myself.

What kind of software is it? B2B or B2C?

First, congratulations on the sales you already got.

Second, yeah sales seems like a far cry from programming.

[elwebmaster]

Congrats on having sold anything at all. This question should get more upvotes.

[darkhorse13]

Thanks! I'm close to $500.

[ebiester]

You ask the people who you have sold to if they have recommendations.

[darkhorse13]

I've sold too few to be honest.

[mikert89]

Just hire someone, 30$ an hour to do cold calls and send emails