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Ask HN: How to plug a knowledge gap in a startup

7 points by bapbap ↗ HN
Hi all. I've been running a "startup" for just over a year. It's a website aimed at people in the local community, of interest to generally everyone in the area.

We have some interest from advertisers that barely cover the bills, let alone salaries etc. We do have a product to sell on top of this, basically just premium features for those that want them (mainly local business owners) but have not yet rolled that out.

I'm a developer, another co-founder is a developer and the final co-founder is designer/UI person. I can run a business bookkeeping wise; where we need help is with sales and marketing.

We do all the usual twitter/facebook stuff but we need help with proper marketing aimed at getting average people to use our site, not just the tech circle we've built up so far (circa 4K people). We also need someone to go out and get businesses paying us for the premium features and secure advertising. We've been looking for someone for a while but no one in our circle fits the bill, it's mainly all programmers or designers.

So my question. Where do you go/what do you do to find people to plug a gap in your startup's expertise. Someone that doesn't mind not getting paid but has some entrepreneurial spirit and can take a risk, just like the rest of us.

I've no idea where to start. Any ideas?

7 comments

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aamar
Plug this gap by reading and doing, not by hiring.

The main reason is that you're still in the early stages of establishing a product/market fit. As Steve Blank (alongside others) says, that means you need to "get outside the building." The people who are in charge of defining and envisioning the product -- the founders, or some subset of the founders -- need to be the people seeing why their product is or isn't selling.

If you feel totally unclear on how sales even works, then read a book or two (starting with Steve Blank). And see if you can meet someone who either buys or sells in the industry; buy them lunch for some guidance and tips. It might be tempting to bring on board someone like that, but dividing up responsibilities early will make it vastly harder to identify real gaps in product fit. Bring on sales people only when you have a consistently replicable process for selling.

In terms of marketing to end-users, you're kind of in a difficult spot in that your target market seems pretty diffuse, therefore not easy to target. If you can come up with a segment of potential users who could be unusually passionate about the product, see if you can reach those people. Go where they are; get endorsements from the people they like. Optimize your viral loops to reach or be useful to those people.

Now, if you have 3 co-founders, it's not necessary for all 3 to sell and market. I'd suggest making it a primary job of 2 of them.

By the way, this advice might be different in the case of other kinds of knowledge gaps. But for sales/marketing, this increasingly and by far seems like the winning strategy.

bapbap
Is it not better to get someone in who is actually good at the job rather than me doing it reluctantly? I don't think I'll ever feel comfortable in a sales role.

Another reason for wanting someone else to do it is so I can dedicate my time to developing.

aamar
Yes, those are the common reasons that founders hesitate to sell. I'm sympathetic, especially with the developing part -- superficially it seems like optimal outcomes are generated by everyone focusing on their core skills.

But the first major sales are almost always going to come from a founder and/or CEO. So even if the optimal choice is not you, it's probably at least one of the founders; he/she may be very uncomfortable in the role but should be able to do it. (By the way, I'd speculate that the optimal person is you, not either of them.)

There are a few exception cases, where someone delegated to a sales person and it worked out. But I think this is a case where those are truly rare exceptions.

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/10/12/startup-sales-...

http://steveblank.com/2009/09/07/the-customer-development-ma...

benologist
Definitely what aamar said. I'm a developer, I spend a lot of time outside my comfort zone talking to people and groups, sometimes even in person bleh, but it's got to be done.

You have to fill as many roles as you can, including adapting to fill those roles, until you can afford not to.

notahacker
Sounds like your ideal person is someone with a background selling ads for local newspapers...
bapbap
Interesting, as there should be a lot of those kinds of people looking for a job I'd think, especially from local newspapers.
jmbailon
I agree with a lot of the comments listed here. As the visionary, it is important for you to be as close to the market as possible. I've worked in Sales at a startup with an early-stage product addressing an emerging market need. At that stage, it is imperative to have agile and product-minded people "selling" the product (Mark Leslie's The Sales Learning Curve speaks to this and might be a good read for you).

Happy to chat with you more about my experience with this if it would be helpful. Feel free to email me at joel at box dot net