At my last startup, I spent about a year in sales. It was out of necessity: after having conceived, designed and built the new product it needed to be sold. A

At my last startup, I spent about a year in sales. It was out of necessity: after having conceived, designed and built the new product it needed to be sold. And the stuff that made it really shine was different and subtle. Which meant the story kept having to change to figure out what mattered and resonated. The time on the road w/ the sales team was invaluable. I learned more in that year then I had in the past five at the company: creating a story, telling it well, listening to the customer and their pain points, deciding how to approach a new client, working up a quote, determining the relative value of a customer and more. It has paid off handsomely in my current work. And I have much more appreciation for how sales work and how sales guys think.