The brutal reality hits most entrepreneurs when they least expect it. You’ve built an amazing product, assembled a talented team, and secured initial funding. But customers aren’t buying. Revenue stagnates. The company slowly dies.
At The Builders Summit 2025, Seye Bandele delivered a wake-up call that every startup founder needs to hear. “You need someone to give you money in exchange for the value you bring. And no one else can sell that better than you.”
This isn’t about hiring your first salesperson or perfecting your pitch deck. It’s about understanding that sales isn’t a separate function from entrepreneurship. It is entrepreneurship.
Why Most Founders Get Sales Dead Wrong
Seye opened his session with a simple exercise. He gave attendees 20 seconds to sell a pretend laptop to their neighbor. One person succeeded by identifying his neighbor’s note-taking habits and suggesting a digital solution with cloud storage. No scripts. No pressure tactics. Just understanding a problem and offering a solution.
That’s the first lesson most founders miss. Sales isn’t about manipulation or aggressive closing techniques. It’s about believing so deeply in your solution that you can’t help but share it with others who need it.
Research from Chicago Booth School of Business supports this view. Their data shows that smaller companies need to focus more intensely on the sales process than larger organizations. Yet many startups treat sales as an afterthought, sometimes dedicating just two pages out of 44 to sales strategy in their business plans.
The cost of this mistake is enormous. According to Wildcat Venture Partners, poor sales execution contributes to the failure of 80% of startups.
The Four Skills Every Founder Must Master
Seye identified five critical sales skills, but four stand out as make-or-break capabilities:
1. Storytelling That Connects
Stop leading with features and start with stories people can relate to. Seye uses humor and relatability, sharing struggles with diesel generators and office expenses that his audience immediately understands. The key is connecting those relatable experiences to the specific outcomes your product delivers.
2. Active Listening Over Talking
Here’s a number that should shock every founder: 70% of effective selling is listening. If you’re speaking 90% of the time during a sales conversation, you’re probably going to lose the deal. Great sellers listen for pain points and position their solutions accordingly.
3. Building Real Relationships
Networking sounds vague and transactional. Building rapport means speaking to people in ways they understand and want to continue engaging with. Stop extracting value immediately. Focus on understanding their struggles first.
4. Developing Thick Skin
You’ll hear “no” far more often than “yes.” Even high-performing salespeople typically achieve conversion rates around 20%. That means 80% rejection is normal. If you’re converting at 80-90%, you’re probably not reaching enough prospects.
The Microsoft Excel Problem
Most founders completely misunderstand their real competition. At PaidHR, Seye’s company, their biggest competitor isn’t another HR software platform, it’s Microsoft Excel and manual processes. Over 86% of their target market still handles payroll manually.
This insight changes everything about how you position your solution. You’re not just competing against similar products. You’re competing against the status quo, against “good enough” solutions, against people’s resistance to change.
Understanding this reshapes your entire sales approach. Instead of focusing on why you’re better than Competitor X, you focus on why change itself is necessary.
The SELL Framework That Actually Works
Seye introduced a practical framework for approaching any sales situation:
S – See the world through your audience’s eyes
Before you pitch anything, understand their perspective, challenges, and current situation.
E – Expose the problems
Put the real problems on the table. Don’t sell because your solution is great. Sell because their problems are real and costly.
L – Lead with relatability
Help buyers understand your solution in terms they already know and care about.
L – Lock the ask
Remember that closing the deal is the cardinal point of every sales conversation.
When Founders Should Stop Selling
The question isn’t whether founders should sell, it’s when they should transition to building a sales team. The data from multiple sources suggests this transition should happen only after you’ve proven several things:
- Consistent conversion rates with clear metrics
- Repeatable sales processes that others can follow
- Deep understanding of your ideal customer profile
- Validated pricing and messaging
Even then, the transition should be gradual. Start with one or two sales hires while you continue selling to major prospects and training your team.
The Real Cost of Avoiding Sales
Many founders resist selling because it feels less glamorous than product development or strategy work. But this resistance comes from outdated stereotypes about pushy, aggressive sales tactics.
Modern sales, especially founder-led sales, is about education, problem-solving, and building trust. You’re not convincing people to buy something they don’t need. You’re helping them understand how your solution addresses problems they already have.
The Chicago Booth research reveals another critical insight: founder-led sales provides the cheapest path to early traction. Since payroll often represents 50-70% of startup expenses, avoiding premature sales hires preserves crucial runway while you validate your approach.
Getting Started Tomorrow
If you’ve been avoiding sales, start with these immediate steps:
- Document your conversion rates – Track every prospect interaction and outcome
- Practice the 70/30 rule – Listen 70% of the time, talk 30%
- Focus on problem identification – Understand pain points before presenting solutions
- Develop your personal stories – Create relatable narratives that connect to your product’s value
- Track everything – Use simple tools like spreadsheets or basic CRMs to measure what works
To wrap up,
Always sell. At no point should you go on break from selling, both as a founder and as a salesperson. Your survival depends on it.
