I've been wanting to hire a sales person for my Saas startup but im not sure if it has to be a person that has previously had experience selling Saas or of it can be someone with any previous sales experience. So far, hiring through LinkedIn/Indeed has been a nightmare. A lot of people that look amazing on resume but don't fit in a startup/high paced environment.
Posted by llamaajose
19 Comments
When you find a great salesperson, pay them whatever you can afford and then double it. Effective sales people are worth their weight in gold. They are not easy to find which is more reason to keep them extremely happy and content (hence the high pay)
Hiring you have think
1099 vs salary
And how much time are you willing to spend training
Have a job description ready
Sales process written out
Leads
And converting sales to users
This is hard mostly because resumes don’t show how someone actually works in a startup.
SaaS experience helps, sure. But in early-stage companies, adaptability and learning speed usually matter more.
What I see a lot is founders blaming the salesperson, when the bigger issue is that there’s no clear sales process yet.
If ICP, expectations, and basic steps aren’t written down, even good salespeople will struggle.
You don’t need someone who’s sold SaaS before as much as someone who can learn fast, sell consultatively, and handle chaos. Early-stage sales is messy with no real playbook, so people from big, structured orgs often struggle.
Optimize for mindset and coachability over resumes. Skip CVs and use a short trial instead, like a mock discovery call, writing an outbound email, or pitching the product back to you. Referrals and niche communities usually work better than LinkedIn or Indeed for early startup sales hires.
I was looking for sales as my first employee. Until I realized it was more efficient early on to hire an assistant who took care of all my admin, also added external consultant for books.
Now, this is because I myself was the best sales person at that time.
Step two was when I had build RR I hired my first account manager who took care of all inbound.
I could then focus on growing inbound. After that the product and market were easier to apply an organization to and the hires became more corporate.
I’m an early stage sales guy, I have 8 yr exp and I’ve sold millions in ARR starting from nothing. I’m currently looking for a new role and evaluating about 10-20 roles in my LinkedIn inbox a week.
Why would someone like me want to work for your company? What’s the carrot? 🥕
Look for someone who can adapt and learn quickly, not just check boxes on a resume. Startup sales often require curiosity, persistence, and comfort with uncertainty more than specific SaaS experience.
Hiring early sales is hard because you are not just hiring for sales skill, you are hiring for ambiguity tolerance. In our case, people with pure SaaS resumes struggled if they were used to playbooks, enablement, and clean handoffs. The ones who worked were comfortable figuring things out, writing their own scripts, and dealing with rough edges in the product. We had better signal from trial projects and short paid tests than from resumes. Startup pace is more about mindset than domain experience, and that is tough to screen for on LinkedIn alone. How early are you in terms of product maturity and inbound volume?
Do you offer any remuneration? Cause it depends on which channels you should post job offers to find any relevant candidates. Also curious about budget since you are a startup
Ask yourself what’s the upside for these people who are going to sell your products because you cannot? In a start-up, they’ll likely not only sell them but be instrumental in creating the strategies to do so. If you don’t have a solid answer for that, start there.
There are hired guns that can be bought, but they won’t buy into your dream. Those mercenary type salespeople go where they’re paid the most. They’re loyal to themselves and their families, and they’re in high demand. You have an expectation, from what I read, that these salespeople should just come make it happen for you. That can be true, but you need the biggest checkbook for that.
Otherwise, take a look at that balance from their perspective. Sounds like you need to become a mentor to someone and, in the process of teaching and helping them grow with you, the journey will develop loyalty and balanced respect.
Look for raw sales talent and coachability over niche experience.
You are likely to see a lot of noise with applications from LinkedIn / indeed. Have to gone the recommendation route from your network? Also worth speaking to sales people not open for an opportunity but if they know good people.
A trial project is the best way to assess. Don’t be afraid to ask difficult (why and how) questions during a first interaction to see if there may be depth in their experience/ thinking.
Is that code for you’re dismissing older sales people when you say that they wouldn’t fit in startups (you wouldn’t want to be friends with them because they wouldn’t be your hangout buddy)?
I see so many young people dismiss older people because of this.
I would think if they know sales then they should be able to sell with some training on your product of course. Good sales people are friendly, able to gain rapport quickly, and able to hit targets.
Personally, I don’t hire, I establish a business partnership agreement with win-win conditions.
It’s more aligned, and if the guy wants to win, he has to make an effort, it’s as simple as that.
It’s probably hard because nobody knows the profile(s) of your « ideal » customers/clients who are waiting to pounce on your offer(s).
I’ve hired both SaaS and non SaaS sales reps, and what mattered most was adaptability, not domain buzzwords. Early stage startups need people who learn fast, handle ambiguity, and don’t wait for perfect processes. I usually test with a short trial or paid project before committing.
This is hard because early stage SaaS sales isn’t “sales” in the traditional sense. You’re hiring someone to sell while the product, ICP, and messaging are still evolving. In many cases adaptability, curiosity, and comfort with ambiguity matter more than prior SaaS logos on a resume.
I’ve seen founders have better luck hiring strong generalist sellers and testing them with short trials, role plays, or real outbound tasks rather than relying on CVs.
There’s a former CEO of mine who once told me he expected to go through anywhere from 3 – 5 salespeople when first standing up a department. It’s crazy expensive in terms of time. Even solid salespeople with skills and contacts take some time to spool up at a new place. And some products just have natural cycles that can be weeks to months or longer.
Startups are especially hard in that you often don’t have infrastructure for them. A real closer VP, head of sales is not going to want to do phone banger work. And they’ll expect product and marketing to be giving them solid marketing materials and tools. As well, what does the lead gen pipeline look like.
It can be a really hard hurdle to get over when you’re at scale up stage. One option is to use a firm. It’s arguably not as good, but maybe can work out pipeline process that way, basic talk tracks, etc. and at least get something going at top of funnel while you hunt for someone who’s the right fit.
Having built sales automation systems for SaaS companies, I’ve seen that scrappy adaptability often trumps pure SaaS experience for early-stage startups. look for someone who’s sold complex, consultative products (even B2B services) and can handle rejection, the SaaS mechanics can be taught but that startup hustle mindset is much harder to instill. try asking candidates to walk you through how they’d research and approach your ideal customer in the interview, their process will tell you everything about their fit