outbound sales

Definition

A proactive sales approach where the company reaches out to potential customers rather than waiting for inbound interest. It's the difference between fishing with a net and hoping fish jump into your boat.

Example Usage

After months of hoping for viral growth, the startup hired an outbound sales team and immediately started landing enterprise deals through cold email and LinkedIn.

Origin

Sales methodology terminology, contrasted with inbound marketing strategies popularized in 2000s-2010s

Fun Fact

Many VC-backed startups avoid outbound sales early because it doesn't scale easily, but it's often the only way to prove enterprise product-market fit.

Source: Sales and go-to-market terminology

Related Terms

Intermediate

churned

Past tense of churning, describing customers who've abandoned ship or accounts that have been excessively traded for commissions. In the startup world, it's the past tense of failure—these are the users who tried your product and decided literally anything else was better. When your investors ask about churned customers, it's never a fun conversation.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

Iterate

To make small, incremental improvements to something, which is a sophisticated way of saying "it's not done but we're shipping it anyway." The philosophy of iterate fast, break things has broken many things and iterated on surprisingly few.

💻 Tech / IT🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

priced round

A funding round where the company's valuation is explicitly set and shares have a specific price—as opposed to convertible instruments where everyone kicks the valuation can down the road. Forces uncomfortable conversations about what the company is actually worth.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

Burn Rate

The speed at which a startup spends its investors' money, measured in dollars per month and panic attacks per quarter. It's called burn rate because watching your cash evaporate feels exactly like watching something on fire.

👥 Human Resources🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

prospectus

The glossy sales document that makes every investment opportunity look like the next Amazon and every university look like Hogwarts, carefully balanced between legal obligation and marketing fantasy. In startup land, it's the formal document that transforms 'three guys in a garage with an app idea' into 'disruptive technology platform poised for exponential growth.' Every prospectus contains enough disclaimers to absolve everyone of everything while somehow still convincing you to hand over your money.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

captive VC

A venture capital fund owned and operated by a larger corporation to invest in strategically relevant startups. They bring money and potential acquisition interest, but everyone knows who they're really working for.

🚀 Startup / VC

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