When you start a company there are many things you want to achieve; changing the world, building an amazing product, fixing a problem, filling a gap (Thanks Rich), growing your staff, getting great offices and others of varying importance.

Contrary to popular opinion one of the most critical things that any company needs is money. To get money you need a product and users and engagement and a pitch to entice clients, advertisers and anyone else.

Ten months ago I began to pitch and sell. I presented to anyone and everyone I could think of. No pitch was too big or too small for me and our product. All I could think was the more people who knew about Motribe, the more people would talk about Motribe and the more my sales pipeline would grow. If my sales pipeline was growing our revenue would be growing.

That’s not always entirely accurate.

I was also told to factor in about a 6 month cycle before selling would turn in to revenue. Sure, we got lucky with a few clients and pitches, our timing was right and the product fit but on the whole the sales cycle for Motribe pushed on from 6 months to close to 10 months.

Fortunately we had the foresight to factor in a long sales cycle so we weren’t put under too much pressure but the stress that founders undergo while hiring staff, growing in to new offices, pitching, client management, product management and then still having to worry about revenue (honestly who worries about revenue in a web startup anyways) is overwhelming.

If you are building a business plan and trying to formulate your financial forecasts I’d consider a ten month sales cycle for any serious deals to come through and for your product to mature to a place where those deals are attainable.