In the early stages, I learned that having a solid marketing strategy and understanding customer needs is as crucial as the technical aspects of product development.

As you scale sales and marketing, those costs become the primary expenses, often surpassing R&D spending, which is crucial for creating awareness and building a pipeline.

I transitioned from product management to marketing because I felt that marketing was an area we hadn't fully figured out yet, despite having a functioning sales team and clear product-market fit.

In the early stages, founders should not prioritize marketing and PR, but as the product gains traction, they need to take charge of messaging and communication to ensure consistency and clarity. Developing personal relationships with journalists is crucial; they prefer talking to founders rather than PR representatives.

When you reach product-market fit, your role will shift from coding to managing a team and making strategic decisions about scaling and engineering culture.

I often see companies getting pressured to hire a VP of Marketing too soon, which can lead to misalignment in growth strategies if the foundational work isn't established first.

Hiring for sales or marketing before achieving product-market fit can be a mistake; founders should focus on learning these roles themselves first.

When scaling from 10 to 100 customers, it's vital to transition from founder-led sales to hiring your first sales team to prove the business can grow beyond the founder's efforts.

When raising a seed round, it's common for software companies to hire one or two engineers to build their product, but founders should handle sales themselves until they achieve product-market fit.