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Re:Ask HN: I'm sick of watching junk software outsell mine. by ajiang on Wednesday October 16, 2013 @05:25PM (#6562241)
Two things you need at the beginning of starting a business: the ability to have a product/service and the ability to sell. The better your product, the less skilled you need to be at selling and vice versa. If you're doing it alone, don't underestimate the effort and skill needed to market and sell a product -- it is extremely challenging and is a big commitment either in terms of time and/or resources. You've made it easier on yourself by making the better product, but sales (especially B2B products) will never magically appear even with a superior product.

Don't view your competitors as people peddling 'crappy tools' or 'junk', view them as expert sellers, business people. Learn from them, figure out what channels they're using to sell. Are they reaching out to CTOs via LinkedIn? Are they calling directly? Are they doing targeted ads in the right publications? Pursue those routes and get your numbers up - at the end of the day, sales is very much a numbers game. Reach out to 100, speak with 10, sell to 3.

Similarly to how often Business guys underestimate the difficulty in the work of the Technical guys, it's really important to have respect for how truly challenging the marketing and selling is.

EDIT: I know OP is asking for specific steps he/she can take, but my view is that the first step is to have the right perspective on the problem and have a healthy appreciation for the competition.

Re:Ask HN: I'm sick of watching junk software outsell mine. by fbliss on Wednesday October 16, 2013 @06:39PM (#6562535)
Thanks for the Input! You're right, I should be clear - I don't think these competitors suck at all, I envy their marketing and sales. I've spent time in sales myself. I just lack the resources to do it and continue my normal daily responsibilities to my clients, so I was looking for some anecdotal advice on how to get over that hump in any way possible.

Thanks for your response, very thought-provoking.

Re:Ask HN: I'm sick of watching junk software outsell mine. by teni on Thursday October 17, 2013 @06:31PM (#6568609)
Your comment just puts things in the right perspective. Once I came up with a solution that I was pitching to some folks. It was clearly better than what they had, BUT they didn't touch it. Lesson learned: Good product in the lab != Good product in market
Re:Ask HN: I'm sick of watching junk software outsell mine. by fbliss on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:05PM (#6569367)
That's true, but don't forget, in the context of the product that I'm working on right now - it was built at the request of a client, and their system integrator saw the results and was seriously impressed, enough to suggest we try to resell it and offered to help through referrals, though I'd much rather have him on board in a more formal capacity to reach out to other integrators he knows (he's got a good-paying gig and has no reason to move on quite yet from it)