Every week, more people dream of becoming entrepreneurs. But too often, new founders underestimate just how hard it is to turn an idea into revenue. For me, years spent in business development and sales proved the best preparation for running my own business.
When I started out, my career wasn’t in oat milk or sustainability. It was in technology. From 2013 to 2019 I worked at Tech Soft 3D, with a short stint at 3D-printing software startup RP Platform. My role was business development manager: understanding complex technology, finding new customers, and maintaining key relationships.
It was pure B2B. At Tech Soft 3D, our clients often competed with one another, but all relied on the same toolkits. That meant negotiating with giants like Siemens as well as early-stage startups. At RP Platform, I saw the power of commercial focus first-hand. When I joined, recurring revenue was low. By building a pipeline, cold calling, and keeping up conversations, we grew annual turnover close to £1m. That growth unlocked more investor confidence and enabled the business to scale.
Those six years taught me three lessons that I carried directly into entrepreneurship. First, the importance of being relentless about new business. Without revenue, ideas don’t grow. Second, resilience: cold calling and rejection are brutal, but persistence pays off. Third, product-market fit is non-negotiable. If you can’t convince someone to pay for what you have built, you don’t have a business.
I leaned on these lessons heavily when I launched my own company.
Building a pipeline from scratch was the first thing I focused on, even before fully defining the production model. I knew the value of ensuring the product was pre-sold, lining up demand before we were certain we could produce the volumes needed.
Early on, one of our most important ingredient suppliers almost refused to work with us because we were too small. Putting my sales hat on, I sold him on the vision of the company and told him that one day we would be his largest customer. Now a few years on, that prediction is close to becoming true. By drawing on those negotiation skills, I reframed the conversation, found middle ground, and secured supply that kept production on track.
It is not just my experience. Research suggests that sales capability is a critical factor in startup survival. According to CB Insights, 38% of startups fail because they run out of cash or cannot secure enough customers. Meanwhile, studies by Harvard Business Review show that founder teams with at least one sales-focused member consistently outperform teams made up only of technical specialists. In other words, being able to sell is not a nice-to-have. It is existential.
That is why I believe so many founders struggle. They underestimate how much of their job is selling, not just to customers but to investors, suppliers, and even potential hires. A founder without sales skills risks building in a vacuum, focusing on the product while neglecting the pipeline. My advice to anyone in that position is simple: partner with someone who can sell, and make sure they understand both the product and the market.
In my experience, entrepreneurship is more than 50% sales. Making the product is the easy bit once you know customers are waiting. The resilience, negotiation skills, and commercial instincts you gain from business development can give founders the edge. Sometimes, that edge is the difference between surviving and failing.
