In the latest installment of our ‘Talking Business’ series, , Valhalla Private Capital president Teruel Carrasco has explained the best practice for entrepreneurs hoping to reach the next stage of their investment journey.
With expertise in business development and within both startups and established companies, Teruel remarked that many entrepreneurs “struggle with the very basics of sales and business development” as they endeavor to launch their product or service.
“They spend a good portion of their time raising money, planning their business, looking at the designs of the product/service,” he began, “but they neglect to go out and actually sell their product.”
However, while these entrepreneurs typically hire a sales executive to remedy this, Teruel maintains that a company’s “number one sales person should be the CEO and founder”.
On the topic, he continued: “You need to be the tip of the spear, especially at that angel stage, and not even think about bringing on a sales person until you've actually developed what you're selling and how you're selling.”
“If you aspire to go to that next stage of investment, the best way to do that is through sales - you're going to attract a better quality of investor when you can show product market fit, an MVP and a market that has agreed with your hypothesis,” Teruel concluded.
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