Better Product, or Better Team

I always pick the great product because I know I can fix the sales team.

Kevin, Microsoft made it by being smart and not totally honest and trustworthy. The relationship with IBM, the real goofball of a company, was to put it bluntly totally dishonest on two points, one is DOS and the other was Windows. While MS was developing Windows they were also developing System 2 for IBM. I wonder which one came to market first regardless that IBM System2 worked better and very rarely crashed. MS bet on Marekting and IBM bet on quality but MS also made sure that System 2 didn't get done on time and lacked support. Also having assisted in the development of Lotus 123 Spreadsheet products I know first hand the issues we had with Microsoft and the competiton between 123 for Windows and XL. I realize that there is no such thing as fair but this had nothing to do with a sales force since MS has distributors not a sales force and a pretty good hold on the PC market. The real answer to MS reference is to have a product that is below or average at best and the best Marketing in the world. I know first hand and have to deal with MS support on a daily basis which has a lot to be desired.

With online marketplaces making it easier to get your product in front of businesses, and social media marketing as influential as it has become, I think word of mouth is more important today than ever before. Small start-ups with almost no marketing and sales organization are quickly becoming relevant. I think my opinion is even more the case with consumer based products. For B2B, my answer would be invest in a great sales team, technology is changing so fast; you can start with an average product, just be sure you have channels setup to listen and make improvements quickly.