Something changed. I don’t know what. I don’t know when. But it changed. If you’re a bootstrapped founder and have achieved product market fit, then you’re probably thinking it’s time to get back to innovating on your product, get the hired gun in and make your first Sales hire. If you’re angel or VC-backed you may well be thinking the … Read More
When you are on a journey, it’s always helpful to have a map. It’s no different for B2B tech startups. Through our experience, research, and interviews with leaders in the startup space, we have developed an easy way to understand the growth cycle of startups. There are three distinct phases for B2B tech startups, with each phase requiring a specific … Read More
Money Makes the World Go Round, as the song goes. But what makes your first sales hire get out of bed? Are they just motivated by the almighty buck or is something else helping drive their ambition? We all have dreams of being the next startup that gets the unicorn valuation of US$1 billion. To begin any business journey, you … Read More
The top five reasons you will love your first sales hire are: Money. I mean, that’s why you hired them, right? They will bring in new revenue. Expansion. They will help expand your company’s reach and help identify new markets. Thought partner. They will get critical feedback from customers and help think of new ways to serve them. Builder. They … Read More
Even experienced leaders can get their first sales hire wrong in a B2B tech startup. “Eric”, who had been in the tech world for more than 20 years, was brought into a new California Bay Area-based startup by its founders to be CEO. At the time they had nearly zero revenue. So, he knew his job was to start landing … Read More
As you are looking to make your first sales hire, a lot can be confusing. What can be lost in the rush to get the position filled and start bringing in more revenue is how dangerous a bad first sales hire can be. Think of a failed first sales hire as hitting an iceberg. On the surface, it’s no big … Read More
You did it. You hired your first salesperson. Whether to get yourself out of the frontline of Sales or, maybe, to get the business more proactive in its go to market, you’ve done it. Now you can focus on other things. Maybe, more fulfilling things. Sure, you’ll still have to ride shotgun on some sales calls but the future is … Read More
Quick. Think of a salesperson. What comes to mind? How do you feel about that person? If you are like most of us, we’re suspicious of salespeople. They are the ones that try to get us to buy a car we can’t afford, pitch ethically questionable extended warranties, and seem to hover over us in certain stores. Throw in the … Read More
Scaling Sales at a startup is a three step process: Prove product/market fit by achieving founder-led sales and proving that someone will pay, Hire a Pathfinder salesperson whose role is to develop a predictable, repeatable, scalable, profitable Sales process (a.k.a. a Playbook), Build out the Sales organisation to implement the Playbook at scale. Note: your Sales leader for this stage … Read More
You’ve successfully built and launched your product and made some initial sales. You’re probably like most Founders and looking forward to getting out of the Sales front line and wondering when you should hire your first Sales rep. If that’s you, then you’ve already passed two of the three major milestones to hiring your first Sales rep: Established product/market fit … Read More
