[lebuffon]

I moved from the cubicle as a coder with a 30 person company to senior executive in a Fortune 500. Here is what I have found.

You are correct that after the product is ready the rest is ALL sales (closing deals) and marketing (getting the word out).

Sales people are a unique breed of human. You can tell them to F off and they will show up the next day with coffee, just the way you like it. :)

My recommendation is do the job yourself to bootstrap the company, get some revenue coming in but then transition to find an experienced person who can be your "head of sales". Then you can focus on product and general management. (Unless you want to become a sales professional). A good bonus structure for bringing in new deals is essential. Sales people are motivated by the hunt and payout for success.

There are some good inexpensive cloud CRM tools so that you can stay on top of your sales people, who they are visiting and what they are saying. Weekly meeting with checkups against their sales commitments and their "pipeline" of sales reviewed and pruned by you, is also essential but then let them run.

Small business is like a three legged stool made of Product, Sales (which is external relationship management) and Finance. Almost no founder has all three strengths. Make a team that compliments you and make lots of money.

[TheColorYellow]

How'd you climb the ladder to exec?

I'm noticing a situation where stepping away from hard technical skills (i.e. Coding) creates a more ambiguous professional career path. It's completely thrown off what would be my previous reference points for career progression.

[lebuffon]

It was not planned. I was extracted from the cubicle at the small company by the head of sales because I kept challenging the founder on what projects were important to make money. :-) Was moved to managing sales and marketing when the web became practical and shifted all efforts to online marketing. (We made products for engineers so that was a no-brainer strategic shift)

The move to Fortune 500 was because of an old friend a glass of wine and accidentally saying the right things. He took a chance on me for a marketing role. After that I had to deliver the goods which meant motivating a team of people, innovating the product (within corporate limits) and good luck due to a need for the service.

So not all me. Luck and "who you know" played a role too.

[aryamaan]

What does finance do? Related to accounting and keeping books?

[lebuffon]

Those are the parts of it. In a perfect world finance is a strategic partner. Tracks and manages the use of money. Sets projections for future revenues. Manages tax minimization. Optimize the cost of loans. Negotiate with bankers. Creates business cases for sales on big projects.