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.
Many founders I work with complain about getting tons of applicants for a role, but almost none of them are well qualified, so you have to wade through hundreds if not thousands of resumes, looking for someone worth even a phone call. So, how do we make this more efficient? Work projects, here’s the process:
Begin by replying positively to all applicants, explaining the first step of the interview process will be a short work project, to show off their skills.
Schedule and provide a project for a max of 3 hours of work over 48 hours. You’ll find that only a very small percentage of people actually complete the tasks.
Obviously, those producing great work can move on to an in-person interview, but you owe feedback to all those who submitted something credible. This process works well, but that’s the main time cost.
Some very high-quality candidates may push back on the work project as the first requirement. If they’re truly great, it’s probably worth a 15-minute call to convince them to do the work project. But you must stand firm and treat all candidates as equally as you can.
Best of luck out there.
