Business success is not guaranteed solely by creating a quality product; mastering the skills to sell that product is also necessary for long-term operation. This advice was given by Shridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, to new entrepreneurs, including engineers, scientists, and doctors. He insists that budding businesspeople must participate in numerous sales calls, interact with clients, and persist despite receiving rejections.
Vembu recently shared this advice in a post on the social network X. In his view, if an engineer, scientist, or doctor enters the business world, they should first attend many sales calls. He emphasized that receiving a rejection from a client is an important part of learning entrepreneurship. According to Shridhar Vembu, a brilliant product or strong technical knowledge alone is insufficient for a company to succeed; the founder must also understand why the client is willing to spend money on their product or idea.
Constant interaction with clients benefits not only sales. It also improves the founder's communication skills. Sometimes explaining a brilliant idea is harder than creating it. During sales calls, entrepreneurs learn how the client thinks, what their needs are, and how to properly convey the product's value. This also helps founders better understand the problems and the role of the sales team.
Vembu believes that sales experience increases entrepreneurs' respect for sales professionals. He stressed that any business, whatever its nature, must sell its product, service, or idea in some form. Social media users shared their experiences in response to this advice. Some mentioned that constant rejections helped develop patience and change their perspective on failure.
One user reported calling random free customer support numbers in India for several weeks to develop clear speaking skills and remain calm under pressure. Another user noted that the experience gained from selling real estate, advertising, and fire extinguishers proved useful later when developing a micro-SaaS product.
Shridhar Vembu's advice is particularly relevant for technically educated specialists looking to transition into business. An engineer, scientist, or doctor may be an expert in creating a technical solution to a problem, but bringing that solution to market requires understanding customer needs and the sales process. That is, besides the technical merits of the product, it is important to understand why the market will want to purchase it. Recently, Shridhar Vembu also raised another business issue. He expressed concern over rising AI-related costs and increasing memory prices.
He noted that memory prices saw a sharp increase last year, and combined with AI token expenses, this could make doing business difficult for companies. According to Vembu, programming has long evolved under the assumption that memory costs are very low or negligible. Now, this assumption is changing. He believes that software must become more memory-efficient, and this change should extend to AI systems. He hinted that memory efficiency and related technical solutions are now part of his research.