This post is on a lighter note…
Today morning, during a casual chat with Kesava, we said sales is like “center forward” you may not be the best footballer in the team but you know how to be at right place at right time. And that’s when it clicked. Most of the good product companies should work like a good football team. This is especially true for startups like us.
R&D as Defence:- R&D is your defense. Your strong technology team will build the basis of your product. It’s R&D s job to stay ahead in the market to prevent competition from scoring goals against you.
Marketing as Midfield:- Marketing is the backbone, these are the most expensive players. They give inputs to R&D to defend better and position the forwards to give them better chance to score more goals against your opposition. These are usually the best players in the team. And if you have a weak midfield you are doomed no matter how strong your defense or attack is.
Sales as Forwards:- This is the face of your company. They will get the credit most of the time. But most importantly they need to position themselves correctly just behind the defense of the competition to be able to score the most goals. They are indispensable since you win only if you can score more goals than your competition. Another thing to note is that anyone in the team can score a goal ..:-) in that sense everyone in a startup have to do their bit of sales.
Strategy as Coach :- The strategy team of your company including very senior management, investors, board, advisors etc can help you plan the game and change the players in the middle of the game but cannot do much on the field itself.
Team spirit :- This is the most important bit. As any sporting team, you need to be a very good overall team to be successful. There has to be a healthy competition at the same time you need to feed on each others success.
What do you think?
