youngmula

Account Executive

Founding Account Executive - New Startup Advice?

Hey Folks,

I have a well funded series A startup reaching out to me to interview at their company, i've vetted the company out and i'm definitely interested.

I'm speaking with the CEO directly tomorrow who has been leading all sales efforts by himself, I will be his first sales hire.

Question - Does anybody here have any suggestions on what points I should be hitting on during the interview? What is this CEO looking for?

E.g. CEO is looking to hire a rep who is comfortable working in ambiguous environment.

Thanks in advance folks.

🚀 Career Goals

🤝 Interviewing/Offer

📳 SaaS

14 comments

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CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

This might be a good resource for you:

https://bravado.co/academy/sales-interviewing

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Here is some very interesting stuff from the opposite perspective, im sure you can come up with some good stuff baed on this.

https://www.saastr.com/10-common-blindspots-when-hiring-your-first-sales-team/

youngmula

Contributor

Account Executive

This is exactly what I was looking for. Good o'l Lemkin.

Thanks

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

All the best !

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

CuriousFox points to a good resource. All I can add is: good luck tomorrow!

Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

My advice to to ask for fabulous cash and prizes. Its high risk. You need to get paid for it.

youngmula

Contributor

Account Executive

I'm thinking about a heavier base salary. 350k OTE with 200k Base..

Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

Yeah nothing wrong with swinging big, they're asking for something big. I had a very good friend at a startup ask me to come work for him. After discussing it for a little while I learned that they were about 8 months behind in deploying the software to sold customers. So basically me coming in as a salesperson wasn't going to be helpful. You've got to have an insurance policy against the unforeseen.

jwils

Politicker

Sales Manager

Having worked as the 1st and 2nd sales hire at multiple companies, you will have a challenging time getting that high of a base, especially if you're additionally thinking of another 150k in commission to make your OTE.

As a series A company, you have to think about their marketing presence and how well that will feed into your ability to actually hit whatever quota they give you [which will be high if you're expecting a 200k base and additional 150k in commission]. --Think, an average AE should produce 5x whatever their OTE is, meaning you'll likely be looking at a quarterly quota of ~437k, do you realistically think you could hit that number with the product you're selling and the amount of leads you would be receiving from marketing [or generating yourself]?

I would optimize for shares if you can [vs options which has a cliff and you need to buy back later on once you've vested], and an uncapped commission with built in accelerators to make sure you can still earn. [Perhaps a split like 70/30 base / commission so you have a bit of a solid base].

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

My concern with a company this early is that the CEO expects you to deliver the world and sets you up with little to no resources. Marketing and Product have to be lockstep with you if you want to be successful. Also I’d be curious if he is currently talking to someone to be his vp of sales and if that is someone you will be reporting too. These opportunities are great because of the early stage but know there’s likely not much process yet and that can be attractive or scary.

UserNotFound

Politicker

Account Executive

I'm in a similar position right now- though I'm at a private, bootstrapped company that brought me, first ever rep, on once they hit ~10M in revenue.

Here are the things I wish I would have had clarity on before going in:
*What training resources are available to me?
Do you want me to follow your sales process, or create/implement my own?
*Do you have specific segments you'd prefer I focus on? (Enterprise, SMB, >100 users, etc)
*What internal/external resources are available to me during prospecting, proposal creation, presentation, negotiation, and implementation?
*Will you continue to sell after bringing me on board?

I ended up in a position that all of the above was very fluid and not well communicated, it's resulted in a changing definition of success- which as we all know means no success, and the first time I've ever been given clearly communicated expectations/goals is in my PIP that I was put on shortly after being told ''you're doing great don't change a thing''.

I gave a lot of grace because I thought that being the first rep meant I had to. Looking back I wish I wouldn't have, because what I thought was me being flexible while my company figured out what it meant to have a dedicated sales-rep ended up with me as a doormat.

salesandstrategy

Opinionated

Senior Account Executive

Would definitely find out the answer to this: Is the goal to bring you on as the sales superstar or the future VP of Sales?

whathaveyousoldtomorrow

Opinionated

sales

<b>This is all about interviewing him.</b> What has his sales motions looked like, target persona, deal size, time to close, lead gen, etc.

redrabbit

Opinionated

Account Executive

How'd it go @youngmula?

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youngmula

Founding Account Executive - New Startup Advice?

14 comments

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