The first commercial people you hire decide whether founder-led selling becomes a repeatable revenue engine — or an expensive false start. We've made these hires over 50 times.
Founding sales hires are a category of their own. A founding AE has to sell a half-built product, into a market you're still defining, with no playbook to follow — and write the playbook as they go. A first sales leader has to build the motion, the hiring bar and the forecast from nothing. Neither looks like a hire from a scaled sales org.
Get it right and you compress months off your path to repeatable revenue. Get it wrong and you burn runway, lose market timing, and set the wrong template for everyone who follows. This is the single highest-leverage hire most founders make — and the one they're least equipped to assess, because most founders have never carried a bag themselves.
Twenty years and 2,000+ placements have taught us the traits that separate a hire who performs from one who churns. Here's what we test for.
Evidence they've sold at pre-scale — not just inherited pipeline and a brand name.
They thrive without a playbook and don't need a big machine around them to perform.
They document what works so the next hire can repeat it — founders in disguise.
They take feedback from a founder without ego and act on it fast.
Numbers they can substantiate, at a stage that resembles yours.
A brilliant enterprise seller from a scaled org often can't function without the machine. Stage fit beats brand.
Hiring a VP Sales to 'figure out sales' before you have any repeatable motion usually ends in an expensive 9-month reset.
Deep sector knowledge is worth less than proven ability to sell at your stage. We screen for both — and weight stage.
Illustrative UK ranges for SaaS companies from Seed to Series C. Actual packages vary by stage, location, vertical and deal size — we benchmark your specific role against live market data.
These are general guide ranges, not a quote — we give you a precise, benchmarked figure for your specific role. Packages can run well above these in high-value verticals such as fintech and legaltech, where deals are large and multi-year. We charge our fee on base salary and guaranteed earnings — never on inflated OTE or commission.
When founder-led selling is capping growth and you have enough closed deals to show a pattern worth handing over — usually post-product-market-fit, not before. Hiring to 'discover' sales before you've sold anything yourself rarely works.
In most early-stage SaaS, a founding AE or two before a leader. You want proof of a repeatable motion before you pay for someone to scale it. We'll give you an honest read on your specific situation.
A day-one feasibility read on the role, then a first shortlist of genuinely relevant people within five working days.
We work as a retained partner on subscription, back every hire with a replacement guarantee up to 12 months at our senior tiers, and charge on base salary — not inflated OTE. We win when the hire performs and stays.
Typically £60k–£90k base with £120k–£180k OTE plus equity. Strong specialist sellers in high-value verticals such as fintech or legaltech go higher. We benchmark your exact role against live market data.
A founding AE sells with no playbook, references or brand and builds the motion as they go; a regular AE plugs into a motion that already exists. It's a genuinely different skill set, which is why stage fit matters more than pedigree.
We give a day-one feasibility read and a first shortlist of relevant people within five working days; the full hire typically closes in a few weeks depending on your interview process.
Tell us what you need and we'll come back with a feasibility read and a shortlist plan — usually same day.
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