One of the biggest misconceptions I see among SaaS startup founders is the belief that they can simply hire a salesperson, hand over the reins, and consider their sales function sorted. Unfortunately for most founders, that’s just not how it works.
The salespeople you hire are typically coming from established sales environments. They might have experience from slightly later-stage companies with small teams and existing sales infrastructure, or they’re accustomed to certain elements of pressure defined processes that make the sales machine run.
As a founder, if you don’t deliver this structure, you risk creating a lazy culture.
Act like the CRO of your own business
I believe it’s absolutely critical for founders to act like a sales leader from day one. Start creating that sales culture early, because ultimately, you ARE the CRO of your business in those early days.
If you were hiring a world-class sales leader, what would they be doing? They’d be creating repeatability. They’d be implementing sales cadences. They’d be obsessing over customer fit.
Take off your founder hat and put on your CRO one. That mindset shift (and change of hats) is crucial for early success.
Implement sales cadences immediately
Salespeople are different from other hires. They’re not like engineers or other roles in your business. They thrive on momentum and structure.
Quick wins you should implement immediately:
- Daily standups
- Weekly pipeline reviews
- Weekly one-on-ones
- End-of-month reviews with planning for the months ahead
- Quarterly kickoffs
These are incredibly easy ways to drive momentum. Don’t wait until you have a five-person sales team. Get this implemented as soon as you hire your first salesperson.
Create repeatable processes
A massive part of building repeatability and thinking like a sales leader is documenting your process properly. This means:
- Building a clear sales process that isn’t reliant on your new hire figuring it out
- Creating basic qualification criteria so your salesperson knows exactly what constitutes an opportunity
- Developing a concrete onboarding plan to set them up for success
- Defining what’s an SQL, what’s an MQL, and clear handover points
Take all the heavy lifting away from your salespeople by removing as much friction as possible so your team can focus on what they do best. And that’s spending their time on:
- Outbound
- Meeting prospects
- Running demos
- Creating proposals
- Responding to RFPs
- Driving next steps
Anything outside of that? That’s your job as the founder (with the CRO hat).
Obsess over your ICP
One of the most important things you can do is to be super focused on your Ideal Customer Profile. I mean really doubling down on what makes a good-fit customer and what makes a bad one.
You need to be clear enough in your criteria that you can confidently tell your salesperson when to walk away. The last thing you want is to sign customers who will ultimately churn because they weren’t right for your solution from the beginning.
This clarity isn’t just good for customer retention but helps to make your sales team more efficient by focusing them on the right targets.
Master the art of forecasting
Any good sales leader would be thinking about forecasting. Not just for today but properly forecasting six months in advance. And I’m talking about proper forecasting, knowing with confidence which opportunities in your pipeline will definitely close in six months’ time.
In your pipeline reviews, dig deep:
- Are there enough stakeholders involved in the process?
- Have you clearly defined next steps?
- Has the proposal been presented to the right people?
- Is there a compelling need and timeframe for when this will actually close?
This is what your investors care about. It’s not about saying, “We’ve got some pipeline, we’re going to close some of it at some time.” That’s not attractive. You need to know what you’re going to close in Q1, what you’re going to close in Q2, and where the gaps are so you can plug them before they become problems.
Don’t try to create a mini-me
There’s a tendency among founders to think that because they’ve done some founder-led sales, everyone should sell exactly the way they do. But any experienced sales leader knows that’s not the case.
There’s a clear difference between founder-led sales and transitioning from founder-led sales. Your new sales hires will bring their own secret sauce, their own style, their own personality. They’ll take some of the good things you’ve established, but they’ll layer on their expertise.
That’s why you hired them in the first place.
As a founder/CRO, you need to be a coach and mentor. Take a step back from being completely in the weeds. Listen to their calls, review a few key emails, do role plays with them. But don’t micromanage every single interaction. Coach at scale and add value across the wider pipeline.
Know the person behind the title
I firmly believe it’s crucial to know the salesperson behind their title. They’re not just an “Account Executive”, they’re Matthew who’s married with a three-year-old child. Or they’re Sophia who’s saving for her first home.
This matters because selling has tough times, and as a founder-turned-sales-leader, it’s your job to help people achieve their personal goals. It really hits home when you understand someone’s personal drivers and can help them achieve those goals through hitting their targets.
If you put a £500K annual target on someone’s head, they just see the number. But if you know that hitting that target means they’ll earn £50K in commission, which will help them buy their first property or pay for their wedding, that’s what will keep them going through difficult times. And there will be difficult times…
Strike the right balance
I see two types of founders making opposite mistakes. You have the founders that prefer to completely outsource everything and those who are just too hands-on.
There’s a fine balance needed. You are transitioning from founder to CRO when you make that first sales hire. It’s your job to upskill yourself. Listen to content about what sales leaders do. Learn what makes a good CRO. Take that responsibility on yourself so you can set your sales team up for success.
If you understand this mindset, you’ll avoid both pitfalls. You won’t throw your sales hires into the deep end, and you won’t micromanage them. See it as your job to coach, mentor, and listen to calls. Make sure conversations are recorded, review key emails, and do role plays. Do this while understanding and accepting their different style and you’ll be on the path to success.
Become obsessed with data
The best early-stage founders I work with have their CRM optimised immaculately. Ask them any metric – conversion rates per stage, time to close – and they have it at their fingertips.
This not only makes your current sales operation more effective, but it makes your company attractive to future hires. A future VP of Sales doing due diligence on your business will want to see this historical data. If you haven’t captured it, you won’t attract top talent.
Get good at the data. Get good at coaching. Adopt the mindset that you’re no longer just a founder, you’re now effectively the CRO as well.
The best way to get to grips with this is imagining paying yourself a proper CRO salary. Likely three to four times what you’re currently taking home as a founder. That’s how precious your time is and how seriously you should take this role.
By stepping up as a sales leader in your startup business, you’re not just filling a temporary gap, you’re laying the foundation for sustainable growth and preparing your business for scale. When you eventually do hire that VP of Sales, you’ll know exactly what good looks like.
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.
