The Learnable Skill for Enterprise Sales - Insight from Optimizely Co-Founder

As a technical founder, the prospect of having to sell your product can be daunting. Many of us got into entrepreneurship because we love building things, not because we relish the idea of chasing down customers and closing deals. However, the harsh reality is that no matter how brilliant your product is, if you can't sell it, your startup will never get off the ground.

Fortunately, as Pete Kooman, the co-founder and former CTO of Optimizely, explains, sales is a learnable skill - even for founders with a technical background. In a recent talk at YC Channel, Kooman broke down the enterprise sales funnel and shared his top tips for how technical founders can start closing real deals for their startups.

You are the only person capable of selling YOUR

product?!🤔

The first key lesson Kooman imparts is that as a founder, you are likely the only person capable of selling your product, at least in the early days. "If you aren't able to sell your product yourself at first, chances are you're not going to be able to hire somebody else to do it for you," he says. This is because sales before you find product-market fit is fundamentally entrepreneurial - it requires vision, credibility with customers, and a tight feedback loop with the product team.

It's not the kind of role you can simply hand off to a hired salesperson.

Gosh, what’s the reality?

Kooman's advice is to embrace this reality and dive headfirst into the sales process yourself. He points out that as a technical founder, you actually have some inherent advantages that will give you a leg up: you're an expert in the problem you're solving and the product you're building, and you have a deep conviction in your solution.

"Expertise and conviction are surprisingly important in sales," he says.

Key steps of enterprise sales funnel

With that mindset in place, Kooman walks through the key steps of the enterprise sales funnel, offering tactical advice at each stage:

Prospecting: Start by developing a clear "sales hypothesis" - a hypothesis about which customers have the problem you're solving and why your product is the solution. This will help you identify the right companies and individuals to target in your prospecting efforts.

Outreach: Rather than relying solely on cold outreach, focus on generating inbound interest through content, demos, and industry events.

"The easiest way to get a meeting with a prospect is to get them to reach out to you," Kooman advises.

Qualification: When you do connect with a prospect, resist the urge to launch into a product pitch. Instead, ask lots of questions to deeply understand their problem and whether your solution is a good fit.

"Sales isn't about tricking people, it's about helping people solve their problems," Kooman says.

Pricing: Don't be afraid to experiment with higher price points. "The fact that they