A friend of mine in the tech industry, said something interesting recently. “Ron, I just looked at your new website and it’s wonderful. However, it seems a bit overly sales oriented. For startups, your greatest value goes well beyond sales. Focus on the basics, such as strategy, product/market fit and positioning. Why do you emphasize sales?”
His point was, since my clients are primarily tech startups and scaleups, I need to consider adjusting the messaging to focus on helping my early-stage clients get to the starting line.
He sort of has a point – but not nearly as much as you think. Because getting to the starting line is too late.
I believe having a revenue-centric mindset early sets the foundation for sustainable growth. It ensures that all strategic decisions, from product development to market entry, are aligned with the ultimate goal of generating revenue.
Pre-selling your offering using the Sell, Design, Build method is the only way to go. It’s an approach created inside Hewlett-Packard in the 1990s. Since then, a huge number of successful startups have used this as a framework.
A startup founder must “sell to learn” as early as possible. It’s the only way to zero in on product-market fit, get market validation, and figure what’s needed to support your go-to-market efforts.
Pre-selling a non-perfect and not quite ready for prime-time offering will solve a lot of problems you didn’t know you have.
Ideally, your solution can be delivered now as a very minimum viable and usable product – because pre-selling doesn’t have to equal no revenue in the near-term.
Find targeted potential customers willing to help finetune a basic idea into something people will get excited about and buy.
You’ll get feedback fast and make the necessary design adjustments quickly. Then you’ll build the best product for the market.
Following this path goes beyond creating something that solves problems and is sufficiently compelling. Prioritizing revenue forces smarter strategic decisions and processes that focus limited resources on growth and profitability actions.
An early focus on revenue will create a competitive advantage, as many startups fail due to lack of a clear revenue model.
Investors are keenly interested in how a startup plans to generate revenue. A clear, revenue-centric approach significantly enhances your appeal to early investors.
Many startups struggle because they don’t think about revenue until it’s too late.
A revenue-centric focus is crucial for early-stage startups – it sets a solid foundation, validates the market, guides strategic decisions, creates a competitive edge, and attracts investors.
A revenue-first mindset approach benefits founders and their companies, short and long term. Doing this will guarantee you’re building products the market wants and a business that investors see huge value in. The big revenue will flow sooner. Enough said.