Tools

Explore

Videos Channels Figures

Atmrix

Tools

Explore

Videos Channels Figures

Atmrix

HI

Harvard Innovation Labs Cast

06/12/13

@ Harvard Innovation Labs

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.

Video

Harvard i-lab | Startup Secrets: Turning Products into Companies

@ Harvard Innovation Labs

Harvard i-lab | Startup Secrets: Turning Products into Companies

06/12/13

Related Takeaways

Raaz Herzberg

11/17/24

@ Lenny's Podcast

I believe that in the early days of a company, the heat shifts from product development to sales and then to marketing as the company grows and needs to scale its brand awareness.

Harvard Innovation Labs Cast

02/02/14

@ Harvard Innovation Labs

If sales and marketing costs are triple development costs, it indicates an inefficient business model that will struggle to achieve profitability.

Harvard Innovation Labs Cast

06/12/13

@ Harvard Innovation Labs

When starting a business, 100% of your initial expenses are typically in engineering, focusing on product development, but as you grow, expenses shift towards proving market acceptance.

Reshma Shetty

07/11/18

@ Y Combinator

The goal is to scale your startup's revenues and customer base without proportionally increasing headcount and spending.

Elad Gil

10/18/18

@ Y Combinator

In a late-stage company, selling becomes more complex as you must also focus on scaling processes and hiring executives.

Des Traynor

12/13/17

@ Y Combinator

As businesses scale, they care about two things: how much they spend and how much they make. We need to be better at showing how our product impacts those numbers.

Brian Halligan

05/08/19

@ Y Combinator

In the early days, we invested heavily in sales and marketing, but now we increase our R&D spending by 50% a year to improve our product.

Pete Koomen

12/09/22

@ Y Combinator

Scaling a Top Down sales motion typically requires building an expensive Enterprise sales team, which sets a high floor price for your product, often around $10K for mid-market and $100K for Enterprise.

Brad Flora

07/08/22

@ Y Combinator

Many founders mistakenly believe that spending on marketing, especially through ads, will guarantee growth, but this often leads to wasted resources without learning valuable lessons.