Sales Track
Ready to connect with your peers who are currently in school or have recently graduated? Grab your free ticket for Startup Boston Week on Sept 14 - 18 today!
Wait, I'm the Sales Team? The Reality of Founder-Led Sales
Most founder sales advice focuses on frameworks, processes, and playbooks. What it rarely covers is the reality of being a founder who has never sold before and suddenly realizing that revenue depends on having conversations you'd rather avoid.
This session explores the often-unspoken side of founder-led sales: the discomfort, the mistakes, the awkward first calls, and the lessons learned along the way.
You will learn:
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How to separate discovery conversations from sales conversations—and why both matter
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The signals that indicate a prospect is genuinely interested versus politely disengaging
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What buyers are thinking during your sales process and the risks they're trying to manage internally
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How to build confidence running first meetings, demos, and pricing conversations
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The most common points where founder-led deals fall apart and how to prevent them
Founder-led sales is a skill, not a personality trait. Join us for an honest conversation about what selling actually feels like, what gets easier with practice, and what actions you can take to close more deals with confidence.
Pipeline Isn't Magic: How Early-Stage Startups Actually Generate Deals
Most early-stage founders don't have a pipeline problem. They have a focus problem.
They're experimenting with outbound, networking, referrals, content, partnerships, founder brand, and inbound all at the same time, without enough data to know what's actually generating opportunities. The result is a lot of activity, a lot of conversations, and not enough closed deals.
This session explores how successful founders build their first repeatable pipeline, identify their highest-performing channels, and avoid wasting time on prospects that were never going to buy in the first place.
You will learn:
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Which customer acquisition channels tend to work best at different stages of company growth
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How to qualify and disqualify prospects before investing valuable founder time
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Why many early GTM experiments fail and how to evaluate results objectively
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What a strong early-stage sales pipeline actually looks like and who should own it
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The signals that indicate it's time to hire your first sales rep instead of continuing founder-led sales
The goal isn't to generate more activity. It's to generate more of the right activity. Join us to learn how founders can build a pipeline that creates predictable opportunities instead of constant guesswork.
Closing Your First 50 Deals: Building a Sales Process That Actually Converts
The first few customers are usually won through hustle, persistence, and founder intuition. But eventually, founders hit a wall: every deal feels custom, sales cycles are unpredictable, and it's unclear why some prospects buy while others disappear.
This session explores how early-stage founders can move from ad hoc selling to a repeatable sales process.
You will learn:
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How to design a simple sales process that works for an early-stage startup
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Techniques for running effective discovery conversations while still refining the product
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The most common reasons early-stage deals stall or die
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How to identify patterns across customers, objections, and buying behaviors
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What it takes to move from founder intuition to a repeatable sales motion
Your first 50 deals shouldn't feel like 50 completely different experiences. Join us to learn how founders build sales processes that create consistency, improve conversion rates, and lay the foundation for future growth.
Stay, Slow, Go: GTM Planning for Capital-Efficient Growth
Too many startups are falling back into the habits of 2021. As large funding rounds make headlines again, it's tempting to accelerate hiring, increase spend and build aggressive growth plans before fully understanding the fundamentals of the business.
This session explores how founders and GTM leaders can make smarter growth decisions by grounding every investment in strong unit economics, thoughtful planning and measurable outcomes. Rather than chasing growth at all costs, you'll learn how to scale sustainably while earning the confidence to invest when the numbers support it.
You will learn:
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The board-level metrics investors and operators use to evaluate healthy growth
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How to build planning models that balance growth ambitions with cash efficiency
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Which unit economics matter most when deciding where to invest incremental budget
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How to identify the leading indicators that justify accelerating hiring or GTM spend
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Common planning mistakes that cause startups to overextend and how to avoid them
Growth doesn't come from spending more. It comes from knowing when the numbers support investing, when they don't, and how to build a business that can scale with confidence. Join Liz Christo of Stage 2 Capital for a practical framework to help you grow smarter, not just faster.
Your CRM Is Not a Strategy: Running Sales Like a System Instead of a Guessing Game
Most early-stage sales organizations run on optimism, intuition, and a handful of deals everyone hopes will close this month. That works for a while, until missed forecasts, stalled opportunities, and surprise churn start making growth feel unpredictable.
This session explores how founders and early sales leaders can build the operating systems behind revenue.
You will learn:
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Which sales metrics matter most at Seed and Series A—and which are simply noise
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How to run effective pipeline reviews that focus on deal health, not wishful thinking
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Practical forecasting approaches that don't require a RevOps team
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Early warning signs that deals, forecasts, or revenue targets are at risk
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How to create accountability around outcomes instead of activity
Revenue becomes more predictable when sales is treated like a system rather than a collection of individual deals. Join us to learn how successful startups build visibility, accountability, and forecasting processes that scale with the business.
