HI, I AM MADDY
Serial entrepreneur and founder of Startup to Scaleup Academy.
I believe most startups with great products fail not because of lack of investment but lack of sales.
Coming from technical background, I know how hard and confusing sales can be.
Your product or service can really help people, but when you reach out to your potential clients, you feel like:
And when you go to investors to ask for money so you can have better sales and marketing:
Yes, I have gone through it all in 10+ years with 13 startups, that I founded or been part of the founding team (Teleport, OrientSwiss, Powzy, Huggables, Project Lockal, Puzzleflux, Corporate gifts, Powzyapp, Fairtrade sex, SwissBomb, Michelanchoco, Career Ninja, Valetify).
While most of them didn't go anywhere, some of these have seen growth to 200 employees, several million in investment, expanded to EU, Middle East, and the USA.
I won all kinds of European and international startup competitions and attended several accelerators both in Europe and the USA including MIT and 500 Startups in silicon valley.
For all my startups, I tried to follow Lean Startup principles to made sure I am building that people want (or need) and were mostly able to secure first customers. Still, most of them died due to lack of traction.
As I started to look for patterns in my failures and success, I realize that it all comes down to sales.
According to CB Insights, the top two reasons startups fail relate to the founder's ability to sell.
They show that 42% of startups fail because they lack a market for their product.
Twenty-nine percent just run out of cash.
You may say they lack the product-market fit , and these aren't about sales - but it is.
One of my mentor once told me - whenever you are talking to a prospect, a sale is always made - either you convinced him about your product, or he convinced you to the contrary.
Sales is nothing but convincing a prospect that he or she needs your product, that your product has the power to make their life better in some way.
As I always manage to get my first customers, with high NPS (net promoter score), there was a clear need of my product.
So why am I not able to scale some of my startups?
I hired experienced sales and marketing people. But soon realize that most of their experience comes from established companies. Companies where - product is mature, have some reputation, know who their customer is, how to find them, what works for sales and what doesn't.
In early stage startup, we got none of those.
The secret of sales in startup is NOT in hiring experienced sales people, who can 'magically' sell more. But to build sales systems, that any (almost) sales person can follow.
It's like building everything as a founder that is needed to take our plane (aka startup) to cruising altitude, and then just engage auto-pilot.
Over the years, I built a detailed process to construct that sales system for any startup - thinking how can I grow my next startup better, faster and cheaper.
After my last exit, I am now helping other startups implement this process, along with all my experience to build their sales system and scale fast.
It would be my honor to help you scale your startup.