A lot of people who are successful in it can take advantage of connections they have in the industry to make the first few sales.

For instance when David Duffield got kicked out of Peoplesoft he went out and started Workday to make a competitive product and of course his name was well known in the industry so the skids were greased for him.

See also this legendary story: https://www.marketingmonk.so/p/salesforce-grit-to-giant-mark...