
Ask HN: Continue as a PM or jump to sales? - obj
To the HN community,<p>I am exploring new opps and have come up with 2 possible routes. Opinions appreciated. :)<p>Goal: 
To continue learning how to build companies from a holistic perspective. As a prospective founder, I aim to be well-rounded to be able to understand the diverse challenges from each side of the company. I currently have:<p>- 2 years of iOS dev experience<p>- 2.5 years of product management (B2B2C SaaS)<p>I have spent my whole career in early stage startups (&lt; 30 employees, between Series A &amp; B).<p>Possible Next Step:<p>(1) continuing to dive deeper into product at a larger company to learn how a well-oiled machine operates<p>or<p>(2) jumping to sales&#x2F;bizdev<p>Why #1 makes sense:<p>At this point in my career, I’ve worked on going from 0 to 1, finding product market fit, and wearing lots of hats outside of product.
It would be interesting to work on a mature product with an existing, larger user base.<p>Why #2 makes sense:<p>I love interacting with people. I have a personal CRM and host weekly dinner parties in order to bring people together. Reaching out to people while at early stage companies to raise money, talk about partnerships, etc, was a very fun part of the job. When I start a company, I am SO excited about the prospect of pitching my idea to get people to believe in the vision.<p>Closing thoughts:
It’s tough to admit this, but I do not think I’m cut out to be a professional developer. I love building things but enjoy having control beyond the implementation process. At least in the development jobs I’ve had, they were not enjoyable because I was always being told what to do.<p>I am intrigued by sales or biz dev, but the two concerns are:
(1) will I have to take a major pay cut vs. a PM role at a large company? I expect target range for latter to be in $110-130K area. Money is not that important, just want to ensure not a ~50% pay cut.
(2) is it seen as a step down to go from a PM to an account manager or something similar?<p>A hybrid role is ideal, but realize that roles at larger companies are more clearly defined.<p>Thanks for reading :)
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laurentl
I don’t know much about mkt or bizdev from the angle that you’re describing
(software in SV ?) but what pops out from your post: you sound a lot more
excited about bizdev than PM. Basically your post reads “I think I’ll love
sales but what about the pay and status ?”

From that angle, what I learned (took me 10 years) is that you’ll be much
happier doing what you love than chasing status. And that it’s almost always
worth it to take a chance and explore a new domain.

Your longer-term goal is also somewhat unclear. You state that you’re a
prospective founder (in which case: learn sales!) but then you ask “is an AM a
step down from PM” which kinda implies you’re looking at it from a corporate
ladder perspective. So maybe think about what your long-term goal is (but I
don’t believe it should trump the “do what you like” advice).

Finally, to try to answer your questions. I’ve rarely met badly paid
salespeople - in fact, they’re notorious for negotiating everything from
compensation to company car to bonus objectives to other perks. Put it another
way, if they can’t sell themselves they’re not going to be very good at their
job...

The prestige of sales vs marketing very much depends on the type of company
you’re working for. Sales / bizdev pull a lot more weight in high touch
settings: large contracts, enterprise / B2B customers, complex products,
bespoke solutions. In this type of company marketing folks are glorified
copywriters. Sure they nominally define the roadmap and priorities but when a
1M$ customer rolls in with a bespoke requirement, you best believe the dev
team will work on that requirement first, while the AM smokes a cigar with the
CEO and the PM is left crying over their Gantt chart. More generally, if your
business depends on a few large customers the sales team, as a proxy for these
customers, rules the roost. In low-touch settings (basically when you have
enough customers that you can meaningfully do stats on them and none of them
really stand out in terms of revenues), the PM is the most credible voice of
the customer and calls the shot; sales people are glorified car salesmen
hawking a standard product and haggling on a 5% rebate. I believe it’s
impossible to have simultaneously strong sales and marketing teams in a
company, due to the dichotomy described above. So the answer is “it depends”
:) but you can choose a domain where your chosen role has more power and
status.

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rajacombinator
Great insights here.

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DrNuke
Sales with commission is where real money can be made even while working at
leisure pace but, coming from a technical role, you will probably need a
partial or complete refocus first, more of the former if you are not a techie
at heart as you say. A hybrid role is possible if you are also responsible for
the post sale assistance, which is the case more often than not. It’s fun,
overall, but you need a knack for that on top of a broad set of salesman
techniques.

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debacle
Product management is only fun from the outside looking in. You're going to be
dealing with a lot of egos, appeals based on things that look a lot like
reality, and minutiae.

Sales is just like that, but at least you'll be making a commission. If you're
driving large sales in a b2b space, you'll be pushing a lot of product changes
anyway (because clients demand them).

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throwawaydmcg
As someone who identifies as a tech person but is working in sales at a large
company, I'll try to give you my experiences. Keep in mind I am currently in
my first sales role after 20+ years in "IT" so take my info with a grain of
salt.

First, you may like interacting with people, which is great for sales, but it
isn't just about walking into a company and chatting them up. If you are in a
pure sales role you are going to have "targets" AKA quotas that you need to
meet in order to get paid. Those targets might be on products that you could
care less about, but if you don't sell them you won't get paid. You could take
a sales role around one specific product, but again, you are likely going to
be forced into situations you don't want to be in. Hot partner of the month?
Better push it hard on your customer or face the wrath of your manager.

I want my customer to be happy. Like, actually happy, which means sometimes
buying a lot of our stuff isn't in their best interest and I will tell them
this. It is great to have that kind of mentality, but sadly most of your sales
peers don't/won't have that and will make your sales numbers look like shit.
If your numbers look like shit you won't be there long. Most of the people I
work with have been doing sales most of their career and do it well. There
isn't a lot of room for "guppies" so you better be ready to become a shark and
think about you and only you.

When I got into sales I was hoping that everything I had heard about
salespeople would be wrong, but unfortunately, all this role has done is
solidified all the negative things people say about the sales folks. Like most
things, I'm sure this isn't the case everywhere, but I'm at a big company and
close to everyone I've met here in the sales org is your textbook salesperson.

As a tech person doing "technical sales" I honestly don't get much time with
tech which is not at all what I thought would happen. I probably spend about
75% of my time on sales stuff with the other 25% being what I consider the fun
stuff (creating PoCs, putting together demos, etc). I am also in the minority,
a lot of my peers spend even less on the tech and are quickly to "escalate"
any actual tech questions the customer has.

I really don't mean to shit on sales because there are folks out there that
are good at their job AND care about the customer. Those people are pretty
rare though.

For the money thing, you might have it backwards ;). If you can sell
successfully you will make WAY more than a typical PM would. I've seen yearly
bonuses that were close to six figures (before taxes). I've seen many folks
get free trips to exotic places all over the world just for selling X amount
of product. At our yearly events they bring in big mainstream music acts just
to entertain internal folks. Companies put a ton of money into their sales
orgs and it shows on the paychecks of folks in that org.

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abledon
Envision when your on your deathbed thinking back on what experiences you
lived. Choose the one you feel drawn towards

