Second thoughts on joining AppSec start up?

Hey there fellow sellers!


I’m reaching out to get your thoughts/advice. I recently started my new inbound AE role at a SaaS security org selling application security tools. I was pumped to join (still am), but I’m starting to see some red flags which are making me question my decision to leave what was a pretty stable sales role and join this AppSec SaaS company.


First red flag is that my accounts are up to 500 employees and there’s a lot of shit companies on the list. I’m talking hundreds with less than 50 employees. I did know that I’d be selling into SMB, but I didn’t realized there would be this many shit accounts. Also, any accounts that pass 500 can get picked up by an outbound rep. And if any of my accounts are not touched in more than 30 days, they can be snatched by the outbound team.


Second, salesforce is a freaking mess. As I’m starting to sift through my accounts I’m finding a lot of dupes and accounts that have been acquired by other orgs that belong to different reps.


Third, I was given an interim manager who already manages a bunch of people and cannot dedicate time to my early onboarding/development. It takes them hours to even respond to my message.


Fourth, inbound leads are apparently low because there are a lot more inbound reps, so there are less quality leads to go around. So I’m basically going back to my SDR days, prospecting for meetings.


Finally, the company grew pretty quickly and today I was told they just laid off some folks across the org. This is making me instantly panic…. Again I left a stable job/company. I’m also confused because the company has seemed to be doing so well.


I’m hoping one of you sales beasts will be able to read this and say “yup yup been there, done that” I believe in the product and I think I can learn quite a bit, but I’m also a bit uncomfortable with this feeling of ambiguity and possibility of more layoffs coming down the road.


What is my best course of action considering I literally started a few weeks ago. Stick it out for a year at least, learn the product and get as much as can out of it and see what happens? The base is pretty good….


OR


Jump ship, look for a different job and remove this role from my resume altogether?


thank you 🙏







☁️ Software Tech
🥎 Training
👥 Hiring
4
Sunbunny31
Politicker
2
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Working with bad lists and unscrubbed accounts is hard. I’m sorry. I can only tell you I wouldn’t leave until I’d found something new.
sales321go
Good Citizen
0
Account Executive
Yea. I think that’s a good perspective. The base is 93k, so I guess that’s a good enough reason to give it try and work through the ambiguity at least for a year….. unless they have more layoffs
SADNESSLieutenant
Politicker
2
Officer of ♥️
Do what's best for you and yours. Usually if you have to ask the question, It's a yes. I have several posts relating to this. Ppl often get sold a pipe dream to jump ship and then realize it's leaky. Recruiters understand. I would do your best to run salesforce reports to keep the accounts you have, find new prospects within them, get active on socials, and ultimately most likely these are signs of what's to come, fuckery. Could you see yourself staying in this environment for a year, two, three? It would be nice if you joined a company that had it's shit more together, but don't hop till you have an offer secured.
SADNESSLieutenant
Politicker
0
Officer of ♥️
and yeah it's great that you got into saas, it would be great if you could find another role parrallel to this in Saas as well.
SADNESSLieutenant
Politicker
0
Officer of ♥️
unfortunately, you are way more employable when employed as well. unemployment is a cyclical cancer.
Pachacuti
Politicker
1
They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy
Can you back to your previous company?
sales321go
Good Citizen
1
Account Executive
I could - in fact they really tried to get me to stay. But this would be my last resort. The previous company does IT/InfoSec service sales. So if I were to do that, then I’m basically done with the SaaS world. So that’s the only thing making me want to stick it out. But was just wondering if these red flags were manageable or if folks would run for their life
sales321go
Good Citizen
1
Account Executive
I just got a text from my old boss “You have had some time at the new gig. How is it going? Let me know when you are ready to comeback and resume your track here” - dang. What do I? 😭
Pachacuti
Politicker
2
They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy
I can’t tell you what to do but if it’s bad as you say, I would definitely have the conversation with him. Maybe you can get more money :)
sales321go
Good Citizen
1
Account Executive
Thank you 🙏 and that was more of rhetorical/ speaking out loud question. 😁Will definitely need to take some time to think through this
sales321go
Good Citizen
1
Account Executive
Update: I literally got a text from my old Head of Sales “You have had some time at the new gig. How is it going? Let me know when you are ready to comeback and resume your track here” YO. I have no idea what to do 😭😭😭
sales321go
Good Citizen
0
Account Executive
@CuriousFox
CuriousFox
WR Officer
2
🦊
Oh hontey, I cannot tell you what to do. I can tell you to do what's best for you and your family. ❤🦊
sales321go
Good Citizen
0
Account Executive
Thank you!! Do you think the ~93K base is a good enough reason to deal with some of the early days ambiguity?
jefe
Arsonist
1
🍁
I mean $93K should help at least
sales321go
Good Citizen
0
Account Executive
@SADNESSLieutenant
4

Your thoughts on leaving a MultiNational for a Start Up....

Question
3
Would you leave a MultiNational for a Start-Up? Why?
78% Hell Yeah!! Risk is worth the Reward
22% Naaaaah.....too risky
36 people voted
10

SaaS Sales Savages.. Thoughts on part-time?

Question
22