I am responding with more detail at your request, offered as a clarification, not as a solicitation. They pay us because they want early customers, both for re

I am responding with more detail at your request, offered as a clarification, not as a solicitation. They pay us because they want early customers, both for revenue and for references, and their efforts to date have either not worked or only worked selling to friends. We have been doing this for more than 5 years: we started in early 2003. We are hired by founders/owners. We work with startup teams that are primarily composed of engineers. We follow Steve Blank's customer development paradigm which merges sales, marketing, and business development into a scientific model based on forming and testing hypotheses about your product, your customers, etc.. Part of the customer development paradigm is that the founders must sell, we help them as virtual team members with tools, methodology, and advice. Our focus is business to business software. The founders must sell because it's not clear when you are first starting out if prospects are not buying because the product has missing or misfeatures, is priced incorrectly, is being described incorrectly, or the startup is talking to the wrong prospects for the product that they have. Only the founders have the perspective to address all of these issues.