DevTool Sales

An industry secret is that most DevTool companies have sales teams. I've been working in Sales at Vercel for over two years now.

This post aims to serve as an intro to technical sales at a DevTool company.

If you're reading this, I'm assuming you're either:

• a founder of a DevTool company
• a sales person considering transitioning to the DevTool industry
• a developer who wants to learn more about sales

What is sales?

First, let's start with some definitions. We are not talking about "used car sales" here. We aren't talking about taking advantage of people.

We're in the business of helping businesses increase revenue, be more profitable, or excelerate shipping speed.

Most DevTool sales are in the B2B camp. Individual devs generally dont't spend a ton on tooling, and definitely don't spend enough to justify the cost of a sales org.

But not all DevTool companies have sales teams. Early on in the life of a DevTool company, the CEO should be doing most of the selling.

This time period is often referred to as "founder-led sales" and is generally before the company has reached product-market fit.

The CEO needs to steer the company in the right direction and directly talking to customers is the best signal for what direction to take the product.

A hallmark of this phase is that you don't have a repeatable way to find and close customers yet.

Founder-led sales

Your first sales hire(s)

WIP