An overlooked part of joining a start-up is picking the right founder.
A rare question I get from salespeople when discussing start-ups is, “What is the background of the CEO?”
More often than not, the question is aimed at working out if the founder is a revenue or technical leader. But why does this matter?
All start-ups will face challenges and salespeople will be better equipped to deal with some of these challenges versus others. Finding the one that your skills and experience are best suited can often lie with the founder.
Many salespeople who have previously joined a technical leader often complain that the commercial strategy is lacking and that too much focus is on the product, often with engineering ruling the roost.
Not all technical leaders suffer this complaint, but everyone knows that great products don’t just sell themselves, and a solid commercial strategy is crucial not just to the success of the business, but its survival.
I have seen great companies stall because they build too many features or too many products, stretch resources too thinly and try to cater to too many requests, from too many clients and prospects, all at once.
The engineers are flat out, the team is swelling, cash burn spirals, but revenue doesn’t move fast enough to keep up. The salespeople are put under increasing pressure, but they struggle without a strong commercial strategy and marketing support.
On the other side, founders with revenue backgrounds can sometimes cause a different set of problems, raising too much capital or overselling the product. Hubris can creep in, and fundamental product shortcomings are plastered over with marketing.
I have seen 7-figure earners succeed at both technical and revenue founder-led start-ups, but the key to their success is being equipped to deal with the specific challenges that each presents.
Get this right and you can reap the benefits of joining a company early.
Get it wrong, however, and you’ll have a short, frustrating blip on your resume.
On the other side, hiring managers should consider the exact same thing when considering salespeople to hire.
About Indigo
We are SaaS GTM recruitment specialists with extensive experience recruiting professionals across sales, marketing, and sales engineering for US, UK, and Israel-based tech companies. Our start-up and scale-up customers rely on us to find the best people for their businesses, and we take pride in knowing our work helps companies scale quickly.