To build a Top Down sales motion, define your target customer and identify the individuals within those companies who have the problems your product solves.

Choosing between top-down and Bottoms Up sales strategies depends on whose problem the startup is solving; if the pitch resonates with individual contributors, Bottoms Up is preferable, while top-down is better for executive-focused pitches.

Top Down sales begin with a decision maker high in an organization, focusing on identifying leads and validating their problems before navigating bureaucratic processes to secure contracts.

A major downside of Top Down selling is the risk of creating one-off features for large customers, which can lead to consulting relationships instead of scalable products.

Startups that sell using a Top Down approach often see better early retention metrics compared to those using Bottom Up sales.

Top Down sales work well for products that help executives achieve strategic goals, but they can be expensive to implement and require significant support.

Bottom Up sales start with the user, focusing on building a self-serve product that can be adopted without direct interaction with the company. This approach works well for startups that solve pain points for individuals or small teams, as products need to be easy to adopt and can spread virally within an organization.

Startups typically use a top-down sales motion to sell expensive products to executives at large companies and a Bottoms Up motion to acquire individual users, which can lead to sales to those executives.

The advantages of the Bottoms Up model include efficiency, as it allows startups to generate leads without extensive sales efforts, but achieving viral product growth is challenging.