I get asked pretty much every week by founders, who are ready to hire, whether they should start with an SDR first.

My short answer is always, no.

And the long answer, definitely not. Not unless you want to waste time, burn leads, and end up back at square one wondering why outbound doesn’t work.

I’m saying this not just now as the co-founder of a recruitment business, but as someone who spent 15 years in SaaS sales. I’ve been a VP of Sales scaling teams. I’ve missed quota, I’ve been pitched to, and now, through Cosmic, I’ve helped dozens of founders get commercial hiring right.

Hiring an SDR as your first sales hire sounds like the obvious first step. It’s cheaper on paper. You’ve got a top-of-funnel gap. They’ll “book meetings” and create “pipeline.”

But it almost always backfires.

The risk no one tells you about

Founders often see an SDR as a quick fix. Someone to build pipeline while they handle everything else. But SDRs are junior. Even if they’ve had a decent run at a more mature company, they’re still early in their career. They need structure, clarity, and close management.

Without that you’re asking them to figure out your ICP, messaging, value prop, and outbound motion. Things you probably haven’t even nailed yourself yet.

With the wrong SDR hire you they can very quickly start chasing the wrong personas, water down your ICP just to hit quota, book weak meetings, and then your early leads get burned in the process.

So now you’ve:

• Wasted your cash runway
• Burned your market
• Got no closer to a repeatable sales motion

And worst of all, you start to think outbound doesn’t work for your market. But it’s not outbound. It’s your hiring sequence.

Do founder-led sales until you’re drowning

I’m not saying don’t get help. I’m saying don’t outsource too soon.

You need to do the reps. You need to have the messy conversations. You need to understand why people buy, why they don’t, and what makes them ghost you after a demo.

If you do founder-led sales properly, here’s what you’ll get:

• A clear ICP based on real deals
• A V1 playbook
• Repeatable customer reasons for buying
• A few closed customers who all look and sound the same

That’s your moment.

When you’re doing so many proposals and follow-ups that you can’t keep up with new outreach, that’s when you’re ready to hire.

But in my experience, the first hire should be a founding AE, not an SDR.

Why a founding AE is the better bet

A good founding AE brings a wider skill set to the table. They can do outbound. They can qualify deals. They can close, and they can take meetings off your plate. They can even coach the next hire.

They’ve got enough context and experience to shape your process with you and not just follow it blindly.

Obviously, they’ll cost more than an SDR. But to be honest, the gap in impact between a great AE and a misfiring SDR is worth 10x the salary difference.

Founders often get caught up in the numbers. £50k for an SDR feels easier to swallow than £80k for an AE. But when your ACV is £10-50k? One or two deals makes up the difference.

What’s expensive is not closing.

And you don’t just need someone to generate meetings. You need someone who can make the most of them.

What a good sequence looks like

Here’s the sequence I see working again and again:

1. Founder-led sales first. Do the reps. Build V1 of your process.
2. Hire a founding AE. Ideally one who’s done early-stage before and can build with you.
3. Let them get busy. If they’re doing 10+ meetings a week and spending too much time on follow-ups, then…
4. Bring in an SDR. Now the SDR has a clear ICP, messaging, and someone to learn from.

That AE and SDR buddy system works well. It makes onboarding faster, reduces ramp time, and sets the SDR up for success.

It also gives you more room to hire better SDRs because experienced SDRs want to join a business where they can learn and hit targets, not where they’re being asked to figure it all out by themselves.

Don’t burn the house down to build it

I’ve seen founders hire an SDR too early, churn them within six months, then hire again, thinking they just picked the wrong person.

But the problem wasn’t the person. It was the sequence.

If you don’t have PMF, a clear ICP, or any kind of outbound motion, an SDR isn’t going to fix that.

What founders should look for

I have this conversation a lot too – how do you know when it’s the right time to hire an SDR?

Here’s what I recommend. Hire when:

• You’ve got repeatable sales with similar customers
• You’ve documented your sales process
• Your AE(s) are spending most of their time on mid-to-late stage deals
• Your pipeline’s thinning out because you’re too busy to prospect

That’s when you bring in an SDR.

But if you’re still trying to figure out how to convert leads or you’re struggling to close, the answer isn’t “more pipeline.” It’s “fix your process.”

Getting it wrong can have a massive impact

Startups don’t get unlimited shots at this. Hiring the wrong person, especially early, can cost months of runway. And the opportunity cost is even worse than the cash burn.

Do the hard work first.

Then bring in the right hire, at the right time, for the right job.

If you’re not sure where you are in that journey, let’s talk. I’d rather spend 30 minutes helping you think it through than see another founder waste time and cash on the wrong hire. That’s why we started Cosmic.

Author: Matthew Codd

I’m Matthew, I have 15 years of commercial leadership experience, helping VC-backed B2B technology companies scale revenue and transition from founder-led sales.  

I use my experience to help early-stage start-ups with GTM expertise, sales best practice, and hiring insights.  

I co-founded Cosmic Partners in 2022. We are SaaS sales recruitment specialists for VC backed B2B tech companies.