(Initially published as a tweetstorm here).
At Audacious, we often get questions from our product/technical founders on initial go-to-market (GTM) team buildout. Of course, every situation is a bit different, but here’s the typical $0-3M GTM hiring sequence we see for top down SaaS (distinguishing between SMB / mid-market and Enterprise motions below):
1/ CEO Selling: CEO needs to get the first $250-500K (for SMB/mid-market) / $500K+ (for enterprise) of ARR, with signals of a scaling pipeline before kicking off any GTM hiring.
2a/ Pipe-gen scaling / Business Development Reps (BDRs): Once there, kick off search for 1-2 BDRs to make pipe gen scalable before bringing on AEs.
2b/ Some folks hire BDRs even earlier than the above benchmarks to help the CEO get momentum. Hiring earlier works if the product is resonating & a BDR can amplify the CEO’s selling efforts. Doesn’t work if fundamentally the MVP not enough to drive sales and needs key features.
2c/ Some founders straight away move to hiring AEs (instead of BDRs first), but that only works if you have pipe to provide AEs in the first few months while they ramp their own pipe gen. More on this in #3 below.
2d/ Once you kick off the BDR search, will take 2-3 months to get the first one to signing, typically at least another month before they are able to join. Likely some time between BDR #1 and #2 signing. Plan ahead accordingly.
2e/ Get advice from 1-2 seasoned sales leaders in your cap table on how to interview BDRs + metrics to assess them on once they start. If you’ve never hired sales ppl, would recommend having your sales advisors be part of your interview panel.
3a/ Sales Reps (AEs): Start looking for 2 AEs right after your first BDR joins. Again, will take 2-3 months to find your first AE, another month for them to join. So gotta constantly look at your data to know whether you’re continuing to lean in on building out the team or not.
3b/ For SMB sales, you will need BDRs before AEs. SMB AEs dont generate their own pipe typically, so need BDRs to feed them qualified pipe.
3c/ For large enterprise sales, BDRs can be way less effective so often, CEO + AEs need to drive pipe gen themselves early on. But if you go straight to AEs, need to ensure that AEs joining you understand that there’s going to be rigor around pipe gen as much as closing deals.
3d/ Similar to BDR reco above, if you’ve never hired AEs, would recommend getting advice from seasoned sales leaders on how to interview them + set them up for success. Would also recommend the sales advisors being part of your interview panel.
4a/ Head of Sales: Once you have 2 AEs closing repeatably at or near target/quota, start looking for a head of sales. If you don’t have this repeatability and don’t know yet what will get you there, hiring more AEs or a head of sales is not going to fix it.
4b/ Take the time to understand and fix what’s missing for the market pull to happen - could be a product issue, could be a market issue, could be a sales execution issue (wrong hire).
4c/ Once you do have the repeatability above and kick off the HoS search, will likely take another 2-3 months for this search. Once they join, they’ll take over BDR + AE recruiting & management.
5a/ First marketing hire: If your early pipe gen is more outbound (typically MM/Ent), product marketer to enable CEO/AEs with better messaging/collateral, case studies of successful customers etc. Some CEOs make this hire even before the 2 AEs.
5b/ If you need to create an inbound engine (often so with SMB focus), might need a demand gen marketer before product mktg but this can be debated both ways - depends on how good you feel about existing messaging being ready to be amplified vs needs work.
Of course, the above is more a guideline vs a one-size-fits-all formula. The devil is always in the details and the details are always a bit different for every founder/company. If you’re a seed stage entrepreneur building in B2B and want to talk early GTM, come talk to us at Audacious Ventures!
