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.
Founders often complain that it’s unfair to ask a team at the pre-seed stage to have a tech advantage, as they’ve had no time to build. But there are some signals that the earliest stage investors are looking for:
Does your team have the skillset to build something difficult that doesn’t currently exist? Have they done that before?
Can you explain how your product will change the world over the long term, is that also a large and difficult technology problem? This vision may change over time, but having this mindset from the beginning is important.
Have you made good progress with the limited time you’ve had: do you have an impressive demo, is there a trusted 3rd party verifying your progress, do you have some early results showing how much better you might be?
