
Ask HN: How do I find a marketing/sales/business guy (university)? - drewcrawford
I'm a fairly well-written guy, and I have way more people-skills than the average coder.<p>Even though we have a few customers on board and I'm getting some great feedback, I have no idea how to get more people in the feedback loop.  There's no way the lunch-and-how's-it-going process is going to scale to hundreds of customers.  My cofounder and I have sat down and basically have determined that we need to find someone with serious people skills who can go out and talk to potential customers, aggregate feedback, and give us some pulse on how to move forward.  Do we need to add feature X?  Change the billing process?  Change the product?  I have no idea, because I can only talk to three customers at once and still keep development moving quickly.<p>I'm at a (fairly technical/nerdy) university campus and I can't seem to find that guy†.  (Our market at the moment is professors/education, so campus is pretty relevant).  S/he's not in the CS/math/engineering departments, obviously (my social circles).  I'm also decent at literature and music, and know a lot of those people--none of which are really sales-ey.<p>Short of turning up in the School of Business and saying "So, do you have any decent students?" in a condescending tone I'm not sure what actual, practical steps I can take to find someone who can go find potential customers.<p>1) Where do the people who are good at marketing/sales/business hang out?<p>2) How do I tell whether a candidate is any good?<p>† Or should that guy be finding me / selling himself on me?  Am I going about this all wrong?<p>A) Our test market is our current professors, so finding another student (or someone at least affiliated with the school / nearby) is better than not<p>B) Yes, I could go take business classes / read books and such (and I've learned a ton this year) but the work involved really deserves a dedicated person.
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cwan
Consider talking to marketing professors for recommendations. I've found that
professors in general are pretty receptive to giving free advice and help
though the obvious caveat is that book smart doesn't always translate (try
meeting with them during office hours - they may even provide you with some
free advice).

If you're really lucky you'll find a prof who is willing to use you as an
example for a case/class in which case you'd have exposure to a number of
business students who might end up being interested in working with you after.

I would also clearly define whether you're looking for someone who is strong
at sales vs marketing as the skill sets are different. You may find better and
more driven candidates in sales at a technical college.

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Scott_MacGregor
1\. Take out an ad on Craig’s List.

2\. Look for someone who has some _maturity_ and a few years experience. Try
to interview a few people so as to give yourself some selection.

3\. Make sure you supervise this person closely in order to ensure s/he is
actually working everyday for a full day.

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rcmorin
drew: i'm in boston. here's a project i'm working on:
<http://www.slideshare.net/rcmorin/say-hi-presentation>

let's connect. rcmorin (at) gmail.com

