By Christine Outram | Founder, Startup with Christine 
(Serial entrepreneur with two acquisitions and 20 years of experience building scalable startups.)

💡 TL;DR

Even the best startup ideas fail without one essential skill: selling.
Here’s why sales—not product development—is the ultimate superpower for founders, plus a free Startup Founder’s Skills Matrix for Selling to help you master it.

Why Even Brilliant Startups Struggle to Monetize

This week, I met a founder—a former university professor—who just patented a life-saving medical device.

Clinically proven. Patented. Backed by studies.

And yet… sales? Zero.

“This prod

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Hey— it's Christine,

If you subscribe to my newsletter (which you should!) then you'll know that I provide founders with the latest advice on building your company.

It also means that you may have read the start of this article (as part of my once-a-week Startup Secrets newsletter). If this is you, keep scrolling down so you can get to the good stuff!

But otherwise... 

On my mind this week:

This week I had lunch with a friend who is raising a round of equity crowdfunding for his business. 

I hesitate to call his company a "startup" because he is beyond the zero-to-one phase and is well on his way to scaling a working model.

But he ...

In this short video, I show you how to quickly discover which customer acquisition path is the right path for your business.

Use this technique to inspire confidence in investors and to generate a concrete plan you can follow for yourself as well.

If you'd like a copy of the spreadsheet I use to create these models, you can sign up here.

In this blog post, I’m going to tell you a hack that will help you get your website to the top of Google’s search results WITHOUT hiring an expensive SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firm.

Most blog posts would answer the question “How to Get Your Website to the Top of Google” with an overwhelming list of steps where you need years of training and experience to actually succeed.

But if you subscribe to my Startup Secrets newsletter (which you should!) you’ll know that I am all about growing your business faster with less stress. 

What matters today is that I help you get more potential customers to your website for FREE versus rel...