Dear SaaStr: At What Point Should a Startup Hire a Salesperson?
Only once you have closed 10 customers yourself.
Never before.
After 10 — you will know. You’ll not only know how to actually pitch, sell and close your product. But from that, you’ll also know when you are ready to hand that off to a full-time salesperson.
If you hire a salesperson before 10 customers. It never works. You’re looking for them to do something you haven’t proven out yourself, at all yet.
They can’t do that if you have an unsellable product.
Salespeople aren’t magicians. They are process-scalers.
And when you do go to hire that first sales rep, at the very minimum, only hire someone you’d truly, honestly buy your own product from — yourself. Be honest here. If you wouldn’t buy from them at this stage — neither will the prospects, either.
Later, when you have a successful VP of Sales, you can hire different types of sales exces. But when it’s just you — you have to hire someone you truly, honestly, would buy your own product from.
Much more here:
