Startup Sales — 5 Common Sales Mistakes by Founders
August 12, 2025
Founders are responsible for the first sales a startup will make. For many founders, this is one of their very first experiences of sales and mistakes are often made.
How Founders Can Make the Grind Bearable
Startups are hard, but you don’t need to deliberately suffer to succeed.
1. Suffering is not a requirement. As a founder, you don't have a certain amount of dues in hardship to pay in order to be credible.
2. Make it Bearable. When a frequent task is becoming a strain that you try to avoid, that's a good indicator that your performance may also be slipping.
3. Examples. If you hate doing cold outreach for sales, try content marketing and conference speaking. If you dislike one on one meetings for recruitment, organize events for people with that skill set. There's often many ways to complete a goal.
