Develop a Repeatable Sales Model

Like the search for product/market fit, this is a time when you should experiment. Don't believe the predictions of your business plan, which are purely unproven hypotheses. Only a tiny number of startups are able to meet or beat the sales plans they put together until they have found a repeatable and scalable sales model.

Key element required to reach a repeatable

Great funnel metrics are a key element required to reach a repeatable and scalable sales model. You’ll need to know what your conversion rates are for every stage of your funnel, and how those change for different lead sources. Usually, there’s a limit to how many leads can come from each lead source, and the only way to scale the business is to add new lead sources. The economics for these new lead sources may be different from the original sources, and only these types of metrics will help you understand if they’re economically viable. (I’ve written previously about designing startup metrics to drive successful behavior.)

Once you've found product/market fit and have a repeatable and scalable sales model, it's time to scale the business. I'll talk about how to do that in my next blog post.

General Partner at Matrix Partners since 2001

David Skok has been a General Partner at Matrix Partners since 2001. He founded his first company when he was 22, and since then, founded three companies, including SilverStream Software, and done one turnaround. Skok specializes in SaaS, enterprise software and cloud computing and blogs at forEntrepreneurs.com.