Forbes October 10, 2019
The unofficial mantra of silicon valley entrepreneurs may well be fake it ‘til you make it, an approach of resilient bravado that’s led to a slew of ultimately successful tech giants – and also to frank deceptions like Theranos.
Recently, I heard from VC Marc Andreessen (on the a16z podcast, here) what must be the most forthright explanation of this approach, a sales technique Andreessen calls “evangelistic selling.”
Andreessen was responding to a question about how do you sell into businesses that aren’t intrinsically receptive to change (i.e. essentially every large established business, including those dominating healthcare).
The Evangelistic Sale
The answer, Andreessen said, is the “evangelistic sale,” which requires a very special type of person who can “paint a...