Slides by Anders Kjær from PSV Academy StartupTalk #30 - Founder's Guide to the First Sales Hire

1. Founders Guide to
the First Sales Hire
P
S
V
PreSeed Ventures 2021

2. PreSeed Ventures
Previous career Education Portfolio
IMD, Leadership Acceleration, 2019
Aarhus University, MSc. Supply Chain
Management, 2007-2012
Accenture Strategy (DK/SE),
Consultant, 2015-2016
Novo Nordisk (DK/US), Associate,
2012-2014
VestJysk Bank (DK), Financial
Advisor, 2004-2007
Anders Kjær
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire

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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire

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Agenda
1. Why the first sales hire is important
2. Two company examples
3. General learnings from +400 start- and
scale-up journeys
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire

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‘Nail it before you scale ‘it’
Let’s make one thing clear: the first
sales hire is not to be associated with
‘nail it before you scale it’
PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
"Learn from the mistakes of
others. You can't live long
enough to make them
yourself."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Message of today’s perception
of first sales hire

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Also, there is no one clear answer when
to hire. It depends…
PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
Day one: it may be from day
one if you have sufficient
capital and do enterprise
sales
Month 10: assuming
you have closed a few
deals with a large
enough contract
value (learn ACV)
Year 5: like DropBox and
Evernote, when you
decide to extend your
freemium offer to include
enterprise solutions

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…just like the first sales hire is not a ‘one-
looks-all’ role
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
Founder(s) with no sales
experience: you for sure
should look for more
experienced sales
professionals
Founder(s) with sales
experience: it
ressonates to do
founder-led sales
assisted by hands-on
sales talents
You don’t just need sales
experience, you need a
person with also
leadership and and
strategic capabilities: you
should consider getting
that VP of sales

8. PreSeed Ventures
Some investor perspectives on why the
first sales hire is important
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Team skillset Avoid over-focusing
on your product
Meeting traction as
(almost) planned
PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire

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Two company examples with
considerations around first sales hire
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
Considerations made prior to first sales hire
• Should we hire junior or more experienced?
• Would like self-driven people – and what does
that mean?
• We need to balance product and commercial
focus
Learnings based on first sales hire
• Ensure culture-fit (is the person used to established
processes, etc.)
• Ensure company-stage fit (expectations and
understanding of product maturity)
• A person’s obtained results from elsewhere does not
guarantee that you hire a high performer
B2B SaaS company

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Two company examples with
considerations around first sales hire
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
Considerations made prior to first sales hire
• Would the sales hire work alone or with a founder to complete sales
meetings?
• What was the primary experience needed: with the sales process or
technical sales?
• How much should industry experience and network matter versus
general sales experience?
Learnings based on first sales hire
• Finding the right first sales hire is a challenging process; great sales hires
for technical organizations are hard to come by
• Focus on sales experience, pre-existing industry network, and technical
sales competences, in that order
• Expect to continue to be part of the sales process as a technical founder.
No one can spot the customers’ pains and needs in a meeting like you can
B2B DeepTech company

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Can you
recognize
this? If yes,
great. If not,
then give it a
read again ☺
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
“At modl.ai the process of preparing to hire a sales hire
turned out to be important in itself. Starting the process,
healthily, forced us to review how we were building our
customer funnel, how we wanted the incoming sales
lead to build it going forward, and it required us to hone
our message, so we could tell the sales hire what they
would be pitching.
We were fortunate enough that our Chair and
operational advisor was an experienced sales executive
who could help us in the process. He helped us review
our CRM processes and tools, hone our pitch, build
pricing and engagement models, and template our
proposals. Importantly, he assisted us in applying and
testing this upgraded tool-chain in practice.
Building from there, we together crafted the job
description for our first full-time sales account manager
and successfully found a new team member. Because
we had gone through the initial process, we had a
framework in place for our sales account manager and
he's been able to hit the ground running. Without the
upfront work, the onboarding and speed-up would have
taken much longer.”
Christoffer Holmgaard, CEO

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General learnings – on sales hiring –
from +400 start- and scale-up journeys
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
• Be agile - the most important thing is to get started. Specifically, try getting a sense of the
market and the sales process yourself. This helps you in your reflection when identifying
the role and assessing the candidate you need
• The first sales hire needs to understand that your product needs more iteration: in this case,
the success criteria for the sales hire is more than revenue
• If you are capable of selling as founders it would be favoruable for you to ‘put the sales
process on a (somewhat) formula’ before hiring the first external sales person
• If hiring experienced sales people (senior) as the first sales hire we have seen it work really
well if that senior is startup-savvy, and understands that the sales process and market is
still to be defined
• If hiring less experienced sales people (more junior) as the first sales hire we have seen it
work really well if there is a good advisor or board member with sales experience who are
ready to coach and spend time listening in on a few calls. If that advisor gets acquainted
with the company and its sales process, this can lift a junior team in a relatively short time

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…more learnings, reinforcing that there
is not one answer to the first sales hire
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
• Should the first sales hire (non-founder) have the CCO title from day one or is it ‘enough’ with a
sales hire who can replicate what founders have done?
• On one hand: we see founders being the best at selling their product and being the
ones who know the market best (even if they are not born and raised in sales). Also, it is
healthy for founders being close to customers
• On the other hand: we also see founder teams (maybe a bit narrow-minded) who don’t
succeed selling effectively where it is in the company’s best interest to compliment the
team early on with a CCO profile (not just sales execution, but an experienced sales
manager who also can think sales strategically)
• When taking the step of hiring salespeople (also just the first sales hire), it makes sense to have
sufficient funding to do it right: i.e. instead of just hiring one sales person as a start you can
actually hire 2-3 people. This creates better dynamics. If you only hire one, and that person
does not perform – is it then the product or the sales person not working? You then risk lose a
lot of time by having to re-employ, and that your metrics and situation overall makes it
difficult to obtain next stage funding

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…and a few more. Now we start getting
into details ☺
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
• Obtain validated learnings on your sales funnel before i.e. doubling down on either SDRs
(qualifying and booking leads) or AEs (selling)
• Understand the difference between MQL and SQL (marketing qualified leads vs sales qualified
leads) avoiding SDRs and AEs spending time on leads not being a fit
• Incentives: ensure an effective model from the beginning
• …

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So, you get it. The first sales hire is
important. But how do you go about it?
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
Next up is CapDesk CCO who will
give you practical do’s and dont’s
Portfolio value-add with ‘setting
the right team’ being one of them

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PSV investment process
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PreSeed Academy: Startup Talk #30 – Founders Guide to the First Sales Hire
What we like
What you
should do
Getting to know
you and your plans
See you
execute
Move fast
Build relationships
and show you are
ambitious
Underpromise
and
overdeliver
Be ready to
close a deal

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