[domenicrosati]

In 10+ years of startup experience on the science and engineering side.

Sales fixes everything and is the hardest thing.

If sales can execute then there is no problem. It seems obvious but it's really not and people make the business about the mission and product - that stuff is secondary seriously secondary.

As a founder and early employee - you need to know if you can execute on sales or not and make it clear to both yourself and your coworkers.

Sales isnt something you can learn to do my biggest lesson is i cant do it no matter how hard I tried. If your employees / boss / cofounder are not closing sales you seriously need to get someone who can as your companies top priority.

Closing means money in the bank and nothing else. Paper is meaningless.

A contradictory learning is the best startups I've been at are ones where folks are ideologically fanatical with mission.

[alex_sf]

> Sales isnt something you can learn to do

Strongly disagree. There is a consistent overlap between strong technical folks and skills/personalities that make it more difficult to learn to sell, but you can absolutely learn it.

[mickael-kerjean]

Spot on. As a techie learning sale for my side project, I will never be the best at sales in the same way someone out of a bootcamp doesn't match the skillset of a Bjarne Stroustrup or a Rich Hickey but quite often you don't have to be the best at something for it make the difference between 0 and something that grows.