Stuart R. Grant’s Post

Every software developer ought to try selling what they build. The "if you build it, they will come" mentality discounts the efficacy of good sales and marketing campaigns. It downplays the discovery of potential users who would benefit from the product. Even worse is when developers presume that the market of interested buyers exists in the first place. My last gig before becoming a professional software engineer was as a business development representative (BDR) for a SaaS company. I'd total 80-100 cold calls a day, often to people who either didn't pick up or didn't want to talk to me. From the aggregate came a small group of interested companies with good market fit, who eventually became customers. I wouldn't have learned the difference between good and bad product fit without those raw conversations. It shaped my development and sales approach to this day. I'm more concerned with what users need (what problem to solve) and if what I build satisfies and delights. When you develop a product in isolation, presuming that the users will just show up one day, you are wasting your time. Find out who those users are, strike up a call or conversation, and find the root of their problem. If you solve it, THEN they will come. #webdev #software #bdr #sales #marketing