I surveyed 41 Founding AEs. Here's what they had to say
How to find your first sales hires and set them up for success
Startups can have the perfect go-to-market strategy, the latest tech tools, and a repeatable sales process, but they will still fail to grow if they don’t have the right people in place.
For B2B startups, the first sales hire (or Founding Account Executive) is the cornerstone of scaling the business beyond founder-led sales.
A great first sales hire will do more than just execute the strategy. They’ll build upon what the founders have learned by steering the company into the right markets, providing feedback to the product team, and making the GTM motion an effective and capital efficient process.
Many founders don’t get this hire right the first time. Rather than share my own thoughts on what founders should do to set this person up for success, I surveyed 41 Founding Account Executives to share their perspectives.
Here’s a link to the ten question survey I asked. I framed most of the questions in an open-text format because I wanted to hear the raw answers. In analyzing the open ended questions, I bucketed responses into themes to put data behind this type of question format.
Note that you’ll sometimes hear differing opinions. This goes to show that every company is unique. There are certainly wrong ways of doing things, but there can be more than one right way.
Here’s a link to the raw survey responses. Below I’ve listed all of the questions along with some analysis and indicative responses:
Why did you want to take the role as a first sales hire?
Understanding the motivation of folks who want this role is helpful for recruiting purposes.
Though every situation is unique, note that 0 respondents answered this question indicating they wanted to take this role for more cash. My expectation is that higher cash comp is a significant reason why AEs at growth stage and mature companies take new roles.
Founding AEs want to be challenged, build something form the ground up, and learn how to build a business from a great founding team.
How did you first connect with your employer to get the role as the first sales hire?
Once founders make the decision that they're hiring this role, they need to go out and find the right person.
Lean on your network! Of surveyed founding AEs, 44% landed their role through someone on the team or a mutual connection
What would you recommend to founders as the ideal compensation structure for a first sales hire?
Getting the right candidate is only half the battle. Getting comp structure right is critical in ensuring they're motivated to drive results.
Startups won't have a predicable or repeatable sales motion at this stage, so the comp structure shouldn't reflect this like they would for an AE at a growth stage or mature company.
What are the minimum experiences needed before becoming a successful Founding AE?
When recruiting AEs at mature companies, sales leaders typically look for a track record of success beating quota in previous selling roles.
This isn't a bad thing to look for, but the role of the founding AE is fundamentally different than that at a mature company.
Startups don't have a sales playbook or oceans of data on what has worked and what hasn't. The first sales hire needs to "figure out" the playbook AND execute.
Here are some snippets of responses:
“...founding AE's are the hungry grinder types that on paper might not be as 'qualified' or 'experienced'. The 'experienced' won't take the risks associated with the first chair, and the hungry are looking for an opportunity to make a name for themselves…”
“...I wouldn't say anything is ABSOLUTELY necessary. Prior to my first time as a founding AE I had been an SDR for 9 months and a closer for 6. Many would have considered me unqualified to be a founding AE but I ended up having a lot of success as it just fit my working style and personality very well….”
“...Understanding sales is good, but understanding the market is more impactful...”
“...a craving to learn and excellent communication, the rest of it falls into place as you go. Your first sales hire needs to be malleable and have some kind of connection or passion for the industry you serve or the business's model…”
What's something your founders did that set you up for success as a first sales hire?
"...My founders did a fantastic job by bringing me to the discussion table and genuinely listening to my customer feedback. When I shared insights from the field, they were quick to pivot and add the functionality we needed. They also gave me the room to fail, which was crucial. This support allowed me to experiment, learn from mistakes, and ultimately find the right approach for our sales strategy. Their openness and flexibility made all the difference..."
"...In the interview process they opened up the CRM and the financials and just let me ask questions to learn what was truly going on with pipeline currently. I had 0 surprises in my first week because I had made no assumptions, I already knew what the CRM looked like and what it needed to get to...."
"...they brought me to a conference in the first several weeks. This allowed me to practice my pitch hundreds of times and have a lot of customer conversations - also observe the founders repeatedly talk about the product and vision..."
What specific advice would you give to founders regarding ensuring their first sales hires are set up for success?
"...Ideally you have a predictable process for generating and closing deals and the sales hire is just to scale that. If you don't have this process in place, I suggest getting a mentor and figuring it out for yourself first..."
"...make sure [the founder] has been able to sell into the target market they're asking the first sales hire to sell into. This is AFTER they've exhausted their sweetheart deals and have managed a few full sales cycles with non network customers.
Set the AE up with some quick wins, referrals, let them take over opps founders have in place..."
What specific advice would you give to founders regarding recruiting and interviewing their first sales hires?
“...It’s more important for the AE to have a proven hard work ethic than seeing that they have sold a ‘blue chip’ product…”
“...Find the grittiest hustlers you can and then pay them well so you keep them..”
“...Ask them questions about legitimately what their gameplan would be in the first 30 60 90 days…”
“...don't sugarcoat reality. The best candidates, the ones who are ready to get in the trenches, don't need a polished version of the truth…”
When should a founder hire their first sales hire? How early is too early?
“...I admire founders who grind and sell on their own to start. They need to prove out the value to a first sales hire and that they have a product that the market needs/wants. I think sometime after 20-30 sales...”
“...the best case situation is when there are key wins from an early founder sales motion and an increase in inbound queries…”
“...founders need to have sourced and closed 10+ repeatable strangers from cold outbound. When you just close people in your network, it can fill you with false confidence/PMF...”
“...we were brought on before the product was fully ready, and our eagerness to close deals led to setting unrealistic expectations. The product couldn’t keep up, which caused issues with early clients. It’s crucial to have a bit of stability and proven use cases before bringing on a sales team to scale things up effectively...”
*Of the answers that referenced a specific customer count, every recommendation was 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝟱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟯𝟬 (depending on ACV). “Customer count” is a broad definition; some responses specified “live” customers, or customers who have been using the product for a certain amount of time (i.e. 6 months)
**Of the answers that referenced a specific ARR level, every recommendation was between $𝟮𝟬𝟬𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 $𝟱𝟬𝟬𝗸
Final thoughts
When done right, the first sales hire will be a key player in turning the revenue traction you've built into a well-oiled GTM machine.
As evidenced in the survey responses, my three biggest takeaways are (1) you need to have traction first, (2) find the right candidate for this role - not the role once you already have hundreds of paying customers, and (3) ensure you set them up for success.