Keeping the Talent

Steve LudwigHiring ChallengesLeave a Comment

this must be the place

We all know that good talent is in high demand. As the founder of your firm, you’ve launched your product or service, shared a vision of the company painting a picture of what the team can accomplish together, and have attracted the talent needed to build the organization.    Once you have the talent, including your Pathfinder salesperson, now how … Read More

How to Define Your Target Market

Neil HartleyValue Creation JourneyLeave a Comment

image of a dart hitting the bullseye

In a recent post on investment pitfalls, we touched on two areas where B2B tech startups often fail to execute. One is their inability to successfully recruit their first Sales hire, the second is an inability to properly define their target market. This post provides insights on how to avoid execution issues arising from poor (or no) target market definition. … Read More

Panning for Pathfinder Gold

Steve LudwigHiring ChallengesLeave a Comment

Panning for Pathfinder Gold

It has been called the “Great Resignation.”  People are quitting their jobs in record numbers. The lockdowns and forced remote work during COVID-19 gave people a chance to see work differently. Many realized they wanted a combination of something more fulfilling, better paying, with greater flexibility, or all three. That means there is an even greater scramble among established companies … Read More

Seed Surge = Series-A Crunch?

Neil HartleyValue Creation JourneyLeave a Comment

investment

It’s never been easier to raise seed investment. Recent years have seen a four-fold increase in the number of seed investments. Unfortunately, the number of Series-A investments have been pretty flat over the same period and, in some regions, significantly down since 2014. As a tech B2B founder looking to make your first Sales hire, should your glass be half-full … Read More

The Alphabet Soup of Sales

Neil HartleyPathfinder SalesLeave a Comment

alphabet soup of sales

You’ve seen the acronyms, SDRs, BDRs, AEs, MQLs, SQLs etc. but what do these mean and, as a tech B2B founder looking to make your first Sales hire, what do they mean to you and should you care? After all, one salesperson is like any other salesperson, right? Actually, no but we’ll get to that. Let’s start by deciphering the … Read More

Communicating with Candidates

Neil HartleyHiring ChallengesLeave a Comment

thank you

A couple of good friends spent much of 2020 looking for new roles in the tech sector. It was tough for them and both interviewed with tens of companies before landing a role that excited them and was a good fit for their skillsets. What surprised me was the number of interviews they were put through by each company. It … Read More

The Challenge of Bootstrapped Sales

Steve LudwigPathfinder SalesLeave a Comment

finding a path through the woods

It’s a common problem, yet it seems one that has yet to be solved—getting the first sales hire right in a B2B bootstrapped startup.   In the years we have worked in the startup space, the entrepreneurs that we have interviewed, and from all the literature bemoaning the subject, Sales continues to be a huge priority and a huge miss.  … Read More

Dealing With the Resumé Haystack

Neil HartleyHiring ChallengesLeave a Comment

haystack in a field

Tech is a hot space and, for startups, hiring the right people is critical to the future success of the business. Given that most founders have a solid technical background, identifying whether a developer can do the job is relatively straight forward. Do they have the relevant Ruby experience, have they worked with Angular are both relatively straight forward to … Read More

Getting Your First Sales Hire Right

Steve LudwigPathfinder SalesLeave a Comment

Many people making up the number five

It’s one of the most important decisions you can make for your B2B bootstrapped startup.  Most company founders wish they had done it differently.  It’s an exciting time when you are a bootstrapped entrepreneur and your company has grown to a point where you need to hire your first salesperson.  The natural inclination is to hire the person with the … Read More