[craigching]

>> The pendulum is swinging back from technical implementation, back through design, and the power is returning to sales and marketing, IMO.

> !00% Agree.

Disagree 100%. No matter the "pendulum" there are different motivations from sales to marketing to engineering and there is no one answer. Anyone who says "sales is the answer" is either in a very specialized software market or is selling snake oil. Any good sales person knows this. Even average sales people know this. Bad salespeople apparently don't.

[thetrumanshow]

"Sales Cures All." --Mark Cuban.

http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/

Edit: I shouldn't have pulled that card. Apologies. I'm not helping matters. There's already way too much vitrol going on in this thread.

[craigching]

I don't think you should apologize. Sales does cure all. If your sales people can sell a thirsty man water living next to a fresh water lake, kudos, they're great sales people! But software is not that easily sold (at least not since the 90's, or not since the early days of iOS in the consumer market).

But the problem is that "sales as strategy" as posed by the OP is most likely short-sighted due to "sales person motivations" , i.e. sales this quarter that affect my bottom line. These types of sales tend to drive one customer's needs versus the customer base. Not always, but that's where product management and engineering can provide a valuable perspective.

And all of that depends on your targets. If 400K is big money for you, go for it. But 400k is probably only big in the context of one or two people.