How to launch and monetize a new idea fast
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- UC Santa Barbara with co-founder
- Built some websites
- Found a gap in the market in 2011
- Salesforce.com
- Gmail was growing for businesses
- Wanted to work with Salesforce from within Gmail in one screen
- Solo-founders can suffer from being alone
- Co-founders can break up
- They've been friends for 18 years so they can be open and honest with each other
- Helps in the startup world where you have to move fast
- Ryan is in Irvine, CA but Brandon is in Knoxville, TN
- It was more affordable to scale being in Tennessee
- Brandon reached out to each person he saw posting online that they wanted a better interface
- They got 1,000 to sign up as beta testers and soon realized it was bigger than a free add-on
- Got the first 500 paying customers
- How to launch and monetize a new idea
- Hit up friends and family for seed money
- How to price your new software / solution
- Special offer for beta users
- Put a time frame on it
- How to double your prices
- Who to hire first
- Brought on two sales, marketing, and customer support first before Dreamforce
- Ryan was solo on the development side along with consultants
- Engineers were and are hard to find and keep
- How to hire via referrals and recommendations
- Be easy to meet with, especially in the beginning
- How to originate and close an enterprise sale
- What ads are working to grow sales today
- Leveraging LinkedIn, Gmail, and Outlook
- How to structure your sales team for the SMB vs enterprise sale
- The art of the slow sale
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Links Mentioned In The Sales Podcast