“In startups the emphasis is on “get it done, and get it done fast.” So it’s natural that heads of Sales and Marketing believe they are hired for what they know, not what they can learn. They assume their prior experience is relevant in this new venture. They assume they understand the customer problem and therefore the product that needs to be built and sold. Therefore they need to put that knowledge to work and execute the product development, sales and marketing processes and programs that have worked for them before. This is usually a faulty assumption. Before we can build and sell a product, we have to answer some very basic questions: What are the problems our product solves? Do customers perceive these problems as important or “must-have”? If we’re selling to businesses, who in a company has a problem our product could solve? If we are selling to consumers how do we reach them? How big is this problem? Who do we make the first sales call on? Who else has to approve the purchase? How many customers do we need to be profitable? What’s the average order size?”