So you've just created the world's greatest storage product. This thing will practically sell itself because it is so [disruptive:innovative:performant:resilient:cost effective]. Now all you need to do is prepare to go public, right?
Well, maybe not just yet. Some things to consider doing and not doing might be helpful. Like with any good system design a startup needs to be built with the end game in mind and some means of scaling to that point. But if you pick the wrong team or the wrong tools you will end up making process more important than performance. This makes some people happy but in reality scorekeepers drag down profitable companies and they can kill your startup before you ever get to black ink.
You need visibility into what is happening at your company but try to think through ways to have this happen organically rather than creating forms and processes that are repetitive or just plain time killers. How much information do you really need at any stage? Don’t even think about letting your business analyst say “nice to have.” It’s not nice if it doesn’t create momentum for your sales.
This brings to mind another question. Are you going to be a direct team or a channel team? Don’t say both because this is not ever ever ever going to work. You wouldn’t intentionally create a split brain in your storage controllers so why would you do it with your go to market strategy? You will create internal competition between channel friendly and direct friendly reps. You will confuse your partners and likely you will alienate them by cherry picking deals. This is simple stuff, so why do so many large and small companies get it wrong? Pick your path and stick to it. Compromise works for things like matters of taste. You can’t successfully compromise core principles.
Regardless of your model, make it easy on your reps to sell your product. Sound like a no brainer? Well, it is. Then again there are many companies out there who don’t make it easy. How do you know if a process is easy? The amount of time and the number of people it takes to get something done. If you are the founder or CEO of your company, get under the covers and find out for real what it takes. Don’t get it in your Monday morning staffing with the talking heads. Go out to the field and shadow a team on a sales call and find out. If you haven’t gotten to that stage of operation then think very carefully about how things ought to work. White board it and be prepared to throw out any system that doesn’t reduce complexity. Don’t hire operations people who have skills in [pick your crm], hire people who understand why something works in addition to how it can be made to work.
Big titles at a small startup are stupid. This is reminiscent of the old dictator who calls himself a general but only has a battalion’s worth of army. If big titles are important to your startup team then you may already be in trouble. Hire strong people with solid, reasonable titles and expand those titles as the company progresses. Give your field team some flexibility on working titles here as well.
Anything that “goes without saying” needs to be said. Do right by your customers always. If your product isn’t a good fit, tell them and recommend an alternative. They will respect you for it, they will consider your product at the next cycle if the roadmap is there, and most importantly it’s the right thing to do. Don’t just say it. Do it.