kbassemblyai profile picture
kbassemblyai profile picture

kbassemblyai

Account Executive

How to hire a first AE / sales lead for an API startup?

I work for an API startup and we're having a really hard time finding our first AE / Sales Lead to help build out our team. We’ve been trying to hire for this role since February, and very actively recruiting since around August - but we haven’t had luck finding the right person. We've had a lot of candidates in the pipeline, but still haven't found the right fit. I’m not looking to post a job here, I’m just looking for advice on finding / assessing sales talent for an early stage API startup - any advice is greatly appreciated! 

Here is some background information: 

- Current Team: ~25 employees (100% remote team, mostly in US)
- Sales Team: Director of Growth, 2 SDRs
- Product: Deep Learning Speech to Text Recognition API
- Y Combinator Startup, recently raised Series A, we’re already profitable
- Customers Include: Spotify, Algolia, Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal
- Interview Process: 1st Meeting w/ Director of Growth, 2nd Take Home: 1-2 minute recorded demo of our API docs, 3rd Meeting w/ Director of Growth, CEO, Head of AI
- What we offer: $180-250K OTE (50/50) uncapped with 1.5x accelerators for anything exceeding quota per quarter, significant equity being the first AE, full benefits (100% covered for employee + dependents), 100% Remote, $1K work from home budget (potential for increase after we raise our next round of funding the beginning of 2022)

Our issues with finding the right fit for this role: 

- We sell an API not a SaaS platform, so the sales approach is different (technical solution selling) when dealing with technical stakeholders. If they don’t have API sales experience specifically, they need to be able to demonstrate ability to understand to technical concepts enough to learn our API enough to discuss it with leaders in engineering / machine learning 
- We are looking for someone who can help build out the sales strategy & lead but can also be hands on and be an individual contributor as we continue to build out our team
- Most people are not doing well on the second stage of our process (low energy, failing to do research on the target customer we give them, or they aren’t solution selling) 
- We don’t have any internal referrals through our team (who are mostly technical / deep learning researchers) 

My questions: 

- Are we asking too much for the 2nd stage of our interview process? Is there a better way we can assess sales talent? 
- For Sales Executives / Leaders at startups - how did you find your first AE / Sales Lead? Or what qualities did you look for to find the right fit? 

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

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☁️ Software Tech
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8 comments

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CoorsKing
WR Officer
8
Retired King of the Coors Knights
So you want a sales ops, AE, and SE all in one person? I can understand the struggle finding someone that fits that bill. Once again, I’m going to tag in @poweredbycaffeine 
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
5
☕️
Thanks for the referral @CoorsKing, and thanks for the post here @kbassemblyai, happy to chime in. 


First off, the market for API sales professionals is small. My first job as a BDR in SaaS was with an API Management tool now owned by TIBCO. Since then the market has boomed, and APIs are now the business imperative to growth and building. However, APIs have often been self-fulfilled with no need for reps...but I see how your product needs one after some quick research. Frankly, what you're doing is pretty exciting for the market you are in.

Fast forward several years, and I found myself as the first sales rep for a 5 person start-up. Why did I succeed? About a decade of experience working for both successful and dumpster fire sales organizations. That, along with a mind that enjoys systems and processes, gave me the vision and focus needed to construct a sales org from the ground up. For a year I delivered 20+ demos a week, grew the company 2X, and hired a team as we need them given our forecast and growth needs.

You're not asking too much, but you are going to struggle to find people since the market is so young. However, if you look at companies that have an open API, and find folks that are Enterprise level reps, you may find some good fits. OR, look for their SEs and try to understand if they are sharp enough to have customer calls/run discovery.
GlenRoss
Politicker
4
Account Executive
Sounds like your standards may be a little high. A closer but also a sales leader, needs to be super technical and sell API, build out sales strategy, and with super high risk at 25 employees. Definitely possible to find but I can see why it would take a while especially without widening criteria. For example maybe they are just missing the technical element but can learn that in a month or two during onboarding 
kbassemblyai
0
Account Executive
It could also be an AE / team lead with ability to grow into a leadership type role. We mostly need a closer, someone who can understand our product and will thrive / enjoys working in a startup environment.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
4
🦊
This feels like y'all are asking too much. When you haven't filled a role this long, it's time to rethink it. 
kbassemblyai
2
Account Executive
We’ve tried widening our search a few times, prior was looking for someone with experience selling API or Developer tools, but we expanded it to SaaS sales if they’re willing to learn our product. I think primarily we need someone who understands tech solution selling (doesn’t need to be super Senior), is high energy and will thrive in a startup environment.
We also tried expanding to look for these criteria:
- Previous experience working as a first sales hire at a tech startup, helped build the process and build out a team.
- A recently promoted sales manager / AE at a small or mid sized business. They are not too far from the front-line but also have some experience in sales process development.
- A failed entrepreneur with formal sales training in their past. They usually score high in the consultative selling arena and experience with unstructured environments.
- A top-performing salesperson that was around in the early days of their previous company’s growth. They may not have built the process, but they’ve certainly watched someone do it and had a hand in it.
We just updated the job description as well - so fingers crossed. They won’t have to build the whole strategy themselves, but will work with the Director of Growth and CEO on helping to build out our sales strategy.
Thanks for the advice!
ASaasguy
Member
0
AE
Have you tried poaching talent from similar API companies? There are some with pretty bad reviews online that have probably raised way more and have unhappy reps.
buckeyenation
Acclaimed Answer
0
AE
Why do you need to hire this person? Okay dumb question. Put another way, if you need that much of a unicorn, and are relying on this person being that much of a unicorn, why bother? Why not wait until the product market fit and go to market fit are just A LITTLE BIT BETTER...so its not so high risk?
Not to saw your director of growth's chair, but what is that person's job? top of funnel filling? Do they close? I take it "nah they don't"...

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