>On the other hand, I do sales at a startup as a cofounder. 99% of my time is trying to find customers. Emails and calls are necessary evils -- I hate doing the

>On the other hand, I do sales at a startup as a cofounder. 99% of my time is trying to find customers. Emails and calls are necessary evils -- I hate doing them, but what am I supposed to do? Just wait for people to come to us? I mostly play in low-value per customer markets, which obviously operate on different principles, so I focus on building my brand rather than selling units. The interesting thing is that when I move in to higher value markets, like when I'm selling myself as an overpriced consultant? I find that my brand enables me to take the same efficient marketing principles and apply them to higher-value products. The other day I mentioned in passing on HN that I was looking for some consulting work, and I got a very qualified lead knocking on my door. So yeah; I think you are underestimating the brand power that startups can have. Sure, you aren't going to have cisco's brand power, but assuming you have a reasonable value proposition vs. those large players, you /can/ build your reputation to the point where qualified leads come to you.