jp1989

1. If you're serious about sales, you can't go past Salesforce. Pipedrive, Base, Sage and any others are all good, but you'll eventually grow out of them. In my view, you may as well start with Salesforce. You'll grow into it. It's the most flexible/customisable and has the most plugins and services to help you extract value from it.

2. InsightSquared.com for Salesforce analytics.

3. SalesLoft.com or Outreach.io for scalable sales development

4. LeadGenius for assisted lead gen

5. http://SpartaSales.com for sales gamification (plugs into Salesforce too)

Spot on. It really does help in all aspects of company-building, and like you say - it's not an extremely steep learning curve, the basics will take you a fair way.

I think sales is a skill that mystifies plenty of HN'ers, and engineers in general. Learning to become a better salesperson is the best "growth hack" for your company. You'll need it for users/customers, journalists, potential hires and investors. Many of the tips/tricks are useful across those disciplines. Look forward to seeing what happens here.

Cool that this got picked up :)

Would love hear what others think.

Quite a cool idea!

Spot on.

I won't lie - I'm not 100% certain that this can be a massive business - BUT no one can deny that it brings value to early stage products/co's and will definitely bring value to the YC portfolio.

In addition, you're right - it really can help shed light on products/teams that generally wouldn't get the time of day.

Our product was submitted to producthunt (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/sparta) , we sat at the #1 position for a day - and it delivered a bunch of great prospects. We definitely wouldn't have been able to connect with so many Silicon Valley people so early, had it not been for PH.

Congrats to Ryan and team!

So, to get a little but off the whole deck/fundraising thing - but how do you compare yourselves to say, Fitocracy. I just started using Fitocracy, and am really enjoying it so far. As much as I hate the word, the "gamification" elements are truly effective - definitely push me to want to workout more and climb up that point ladder.

Other than that - the app looks solid, and nice n simple. My only feedback is the tagline "for people who hate fitness". I am not a massive fan of fitness (hence why I am interested in these apps), but want to become someone that DOESN'T hate fitness - isn't that the entire goal of your company?

Congrats on raising the round and a great execution so far though :)

Promising - I think it fits a nice gap. I never really know how/where to voice my opinions on current affairs etc, so would look forward to this.

I'm sorry, but I find this attitude really bizarre. You seem to confuse marketing with advertising, and even then it still feels bizarre. How are people meant to discover products, or solutions to their problems?

We're in the extremely early stages our our B2B SaaS business - and cold calling has been extremely effective so far. We've gotten great feedback and battle-tested our hypothesis on "real customers".

Indeed, cold calling will not be a big part of our strategy going forward - but it's a great way to feel out the market.