Hiring the first Sales VP for your startup – when and why
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The mind of an
The mind of an Indian startup founder is typically (and sometimes even exclusively) attuned to creating a great product.
But very few understand the power of sales and marketing in making that product available before a wide range of users.
Engineers may not necessarily be the coding nerds from every sci-fi movie you have ever watched, but they are certainly not the face of a business organization.
They will do all
They will do all these things when in reality the second there is a sign of product-market fit it should be viewed as ‘Go’ time and it’s time to hire a VP sales along with other executives and start going after the market.
So, there are a lot of different reasons why you want to hire a VP of sales early, and a lot of technical or product-centric founders tend to push back on that if they haven’t seen great sales before.
They worry about an
They worry about an early sales hire ruining their culture, or they worry about “Are we ready for this? Do we need somebody of that caliber driving our business?”
Or they may worry that it’s too early for the company to adopt, or worry about the cost.
So, there are many founder reasons to not do it, but I think most of those are wrong, and their product is actually getting a strong pull from the market.
It may seem ironic,
It may seem ironic, but even at the height of automation and software innovation, we still need the sales team to do the market research, make those phone calls, and be the smiling face of customer representation.
Here we turn to entrepreneurs who adopted a sales framework early on in their startup career—and even those who didn’t—to understand the importance of sales and marketing in a SaaS organization.
Many founders today, particularly
Many founders today, particularly technical or product founders, end up adding sales and a VP sales much too late in the life of the company, and they often wait until not only are there clear signs of product-market fit but they will bring on two SDRs (sales development representatives), they will test them out for six months.
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