u/Financial-Bison400

19, no degree and my long-term goal is to eventually build an internet business/startup.

Right now I'm trying to figure out what would be the highest-leverage way to spend the next few years learning.

I'm considering getting into tech sales as an SDR, where I'd learn prospecting, cold calling, discovery, understanding customers and how companies actually buy.

Another path I'm considering is GTM/revenue engineering, where I'd learn outbound systems, data, automation, AI tools, CRM and the systems behind acquiring customers.

But I'm wondering if I'm overthinking the job title.

If you were 19 and knew you wanted to build a startup eventually, what would you deliberately try to become really good at before starting one?

Would you focus on:

- sales and customer acquisition

- coding/product development

- marketing/distribution

- working at an early-stage startup

- learning operations and business fundamentals

- building small projects on the side

- or something else?

I'm less interested in "become an SDR" vs "become a GTM engineer."

I'm more interested in what skills and experiences actually compound when you eventually become a founder.

Would love to hear from people who have actually built startups and what they wish they had learned earlier.

I’m trying to understand the difference between sales and GTM engineering, and I think I may be oversimplifying both.

From what I understand, a traditional sales role is mainly about operating an existing sales motion such as prospecting, cold calling, qualifying, following up, booking meetings, and eventually moving toward closing etc

Whereas GTM engineering seems more focused on building or improving the system behind that motion like using tools, data, signals, enrichment, automation, lead/account lists, workflows, etc.

So are both essentially “working within a system,” just at different levels?

For people actually working in these roles:

What does an SDR actually own vs. just operate?

What does a GTM engineer actually build/own?

Where does the line between “doing sales” and “building the sales system” really sit?

And how much technical knowledge is actually needed for GTM engineering?

Is this gonna change the structure of sales or just a trend?

So context: I was doing calisthenics for quite some time. But since I didn't see much muscle improvement for the years plus my protein diet was basically non-existent, i stopped working out for a couple months. But somehow for the love of the game i wanna get back in.

Yesterday I noticed that my pull ups were basically pulled from more of bicep involvement, kinda like i never did the snow angel movement, it was like chest out, and pull in, elbows back. Was it because of that I wasnt able to grow my back?

Hence the question.

So as the title says, being a solopreneur in charge of both build and sell.

What's your major bottleneck? Is it unable to decide which parts to focus on? Or not enough replies from outreach, hate cold calling, not so productive, don't know who to target, messaging doesn't work, get meetings but they're bad, you have leads but don't follow up? Or simply distribution sucks?

I'm trying to break into SaaS sales/SDR, and honestly, I'm starting to wonder if I'm fighting an uphill battle that I can't win.

I'm from India, specifically a fairly rural/remote state in the Northeast. I don't have a college degree and I don't have formal sales experience either.

I've been trying to compensate for that by doing more than just clicking "Apply."

I've been:

- Finding the hiring manager/founder and emailing them directly

- Sending 5 accounts I'd target and explaining why

- Recording Loom videos

- Creating sales/territory plans in PowerPoint

- Researching the company and its ICP before reaching out

- Cold calling when I can

But I'm running into walls everywhere.

For Indian SDR roles, a lot of companies want a degree + experience. Some want specific regional languages like Marathi, Kannada, etc., depending on the market.

For US-facing roles, I'm seeing requirements like 2–4 years of experience.

And when I try applying directly to US companies, a huge number say they're only hiring candidates located in North America.

So I'm stuck in this weird middle ground:

India: "You don't have the degree/experience/language."

US: "You're not in North America."

And I understand why companies have these requirements. I'm not saying they're unreasonable. I'm just trying to figure out how someone like me is actually supposed to get the first opportunity.

For those of you already working in sales development:

Is this approach actually worth continuing?

If you were in my position what would you do to get that first SDR/BDR opportunity?

Would you keep doing highly personalized outbound to hiring managers, or am I missing a completely different route into SaaS sales?

I'm not looking for sympathy. I genuinely want to know what you'd do.