This is a progression I have witnessed many times.

1. A team gets together and decides to develop a product/service for a particular niche.

2. A considerable amount of time is put into the planning of the entire venture.

3. Development work begins, and months/years are sometime slaved away getting the product to launch stage.

4. The Product/Service is launched with a lot of marketing and buzz.

5. The Product/Service does not get the expected level of traction, and the team wonders what the problem is. More often than not this results in reworking the product/service.

Without traction the team usually breaks up, and another startup reaches the deadpool.

The problems as I see it, are primarily in stages 3 & 4.

Stage 3: Regardless of whether you are in charge of business development or programming, start to learn about all the aspects of your business in greater detail. This benefits the entire team. The better equipped sales people are with the technical details of a product/service, the better they will sell it. It works the other way around as well, when programmers understand customers better, they will create better products. Each side has to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. If starting a company was as simple as delegating some tasks and expecting the next big idea, we would see a new one launch every day.

Stage 4: Sales is the responsibility of everyone on the team. It does not matter if you do not know anything about how it is done. Get off your chair, and go to your prospects. Once again, companies that shy away from getting their hands dirty, think that sales is the responsibility of a certain individual or a group, are startups heading for trouble.

Starting up is an incredibly challenging experience. One in which it is essential to do one’s best to equip oneself to the best of one’s ability. Job descriptions were only created to help solve some of the chaos every startup faces. In the end, the more you know about what you are developing, how you plan on selling it, and who your customers are, the greater your chances of success.