How can our membership-only platform solve your Business Development pain-points?

Humor us for a second and ask yourself a question.

Q. Who are the top 3 – 5 sales people in your network.

Pause….5 mins pass.

Exactly. Thought so…struggling a little. The majority of founders and investors we spoke with did too. Some cleary smashed it out of the ball park (forgive the US analogy, or should I say out of the Stadium with a UK cricket bent). But that was the minority. Many of us don’t have natural networks of people that are exceptional sales people. In one exchange with a couple of founders when asked “Who is the best sales person you know?” they joked that it was the founders themselves. There is much truth in that statement. Many founders are natural born salespeople. They have to sell their vision day in and day out. To employees, partners, customers and investors. But a salesforce of one or two, is not scalable.

We are not alone in thinking that sales is a challenge. Even Marc Andresson, the founder of eponymous Venture Capital fund A16Z said:

“One of the most common mistakes made by technical CEOs (me included!) is assuming they can run sales themselves.”

We are a group of founders, operators and investors that believe that the majority of founders, especially technical ones, are great at being able to build solutions however struggle with i) selling the product ii) finding product market fit. AstraNova was born as a community to help with the former, i.e. address the great sales challenge. The need for founders to find Sales Allies, those that can help breathe revenue into the early stage business helping them accelerate and reach the next rung of their funding journey.

Our solution is focused on helping founders find the best sales, channel sales, business development, partnerships, international expansion, growth, customer success and revenue experts was to create an invitation only online community. One with high signal experts that were available to help startups increase their revenue.

You may ask that in a world full of online destinations such as Linkedin and AngelList, why do we need another? We answer that with one word. Focus. We see Linkedin as an invaluable resource, however its just simply too large a network, who was the last person you connected with that you have never met and have never done any work with. Also AngelList belonged to a set of “broadcast” startups that were not social, were not created with engagement in mind and were limited in their inability to create a dialogue between those wanting to work with another beyond the paradigm of a traditional jobs board.

Why do this as an expert? Apart from being able to find incredible startups and scaleups, its about finding a community of like minded, high signal people to connect and work with from around the world. We are opening up our blackbooks to those that can grow and add value to the community. We can all win together. Today a lot of accelerators that want you to play volunteer advisor or there are those that do pay to have you support the startups for a couple of months. We believe what you need is aligned incentives and longer term working relationships. That’s where we step in. Experts get paid and get to work with promising companies from all over the world.

Why do this as a startup / scaleup? We want to help as many founders as possible to grow their sales so that they are one step closer to that next funding round or to becoming a sustainable business. Everything has to start somewhere. Our somewhere is the first 100 members of this exclusive community, who have been hand selected to kick start what is bound to become the world’s most coveted private, invitation-only community for those looking to raise their revenue.

We see the world full of possibilities for founders that are able to find the right resources on AstraNova. The founders come in all shapes and sizes and everyone is welcome to the party.

Doesn’t matter which archetype you relate to below. We know that you can find help with increasing revenue for your startups here.

Ostrich: Founder with head in the sand. They know that they need help with sales but don’t want to face it. After all its always easier to worry about the product which is under their control.

Eagle: Founder tries to “go it alone”. Some early traction with sales gives the founder wings to fly with but its a slow process with limited success.

Wolf: These founders run in a pack. They understand the power of team work and the need to have sales leaders helping them sell. Its a team sport and the pack is often successful.