Short answer
Don’t hire salespeople and send them out to “find leads” without a system. Close 10–15 deals yourself first, so you know the ground reality. Then put the basics in place: onboarding that teaches discovery around the customer’s business problems (SIAM), qualification run alongside it (MANT-C), and a way to monitor progress. A system brings predictability, direction and a sense of achievement, and lets the founder step back.
“Pick up the bag and go hunt”
The most common pattern I see in tech startups: the founder hires salespeople and tells them to go out into the market, prospect and find leads.
There’s no system to monitor what they do. No sales process. No onboarding. No coaching on the objections they’ll face, how to run a discovery session, or how to qualify an opportunity. They’re simply told to pick up the bag and hunt.
That isn’t a sales strategy. It’s preparing everyone for frustration: the salespeople, the founder and the rest of the team. It also creates an uncomfortable environment in the organisation, because nobody can tell whether the problem is the people, the product or the market.
What a sales system gives a small team
A sales system doesn’t need to be complicated. But once it exists, it brings four things a startup badly needs:
- Predictability: you can see what’s likely to close, and when.
- Direction: everyone knows what a good opportunity looks like and what to do next.
- A sense of achievement: progress is visible, not just the final win or loss.
- The ability to monitor progress in the direction you actually want.
Are you ready for your first sales hire?
Before hiring anyone, the founder should close at least 10–15 sales personally. The exact number depends on the type and size of your opportunities, but the principle holds.
Closing those deals yourself teaches you the ground reality: who buys, why, what objections come up, and what the field situation is really like. Without that, you can’t coach a salesperson, because you don’t know what you’re coaching them towards.
The founder’s blind spot
Most tech founders come from a technology background. Many believe that building a great product is enough. Quite a few have a negative perception of sales, and some openly dislike it. So they plan to hand sales to someone else, focus on the product, and “take over once a good opportunity is identified”.
It may or may not work. More often it doesn’t, and it’s not the way to build a sales organisation. A salesperson who has no system, no coaching and a founder who only appears for the big deals will struggle, however talented they are.
What to put in place first
For a small startup, I’d start with two things, and they run together.
1. Onboarding built on discovery (SIAM)
Teach every new seller how to run a discovery session around the customer’s business problems and challenges: how to ask about them, how to go deeper, and how to connect them to the technology or solution you sell.
The best way I know to do this is SIAM: Situation, Implication, Approach and Micro-commitment questions. It moves the conversation from what the customer says they want to the business problem behind it. Our guide to discovery questions explains each type with examples.
2. Qualification, run in parallel (MANT-C)
While the discovery session is running, your seller should be qualifying at the same time, on MANT-C: Money, Authority, Need, Timing and Competition. Discovery and qualification aren’t separate steps; they happen in the same conversation.
Get these two right, with onboarding that teaches them properly, and your first salespeople have something real to work with instead of a bag and a target.
As the team grows, the same system scales up into the full B2B Tech SalesOS: forecasting on qualified KPIs, a review rhythm, and coaching. The sales forecasting guide shows what that looks like in a 30-person team.
How does a founder step back from deals?
Founders often worry that stepping back means losing control. It doesn’t, if there’s a system.
Once a sales team and a system are in place, the founder doesn’t detach from sales completely. They stay involved, but at the right time and in the right role. We call it executive engagement: positioning the founder in an opportunity to meet senior people in the prospect’s organisation, where a founder-to-leader conversation genuinely helps the deal.
That’s very different from a founder who insists on being in every final meeting. That pattern undermines the sales team, and the customer quickly learns to bypass them.
Over time, the founder steps back further and focuses on what only they can do:
- Strategy and the future of the organisation,
- Coaching, directing and motivating the sales team,
- Scaling the business.
Common mistakes startups make with sales
- Hiring salespeople before having a system, then blaming them when it doesn’t work.
- Hiring before the founder has closed enough deals to know the ground reality.
- Treating sales as someone else’s problem because the founder prefers the product.
- Skipping onboarding, so every new seller learns by trial and error.
- The founder joining every final meeting instead of engaging at the right moments.
Frequently asked questions
When should a founder hire their first salesperson?
After closing at least 10–15 deals personally (depending on deal type and size), so the founder understands the ground reality and can coach the new hire.
What should a startup sales system include first?
Onboarding that teaches discovery around customer business problems (SIAM), qualification run alongside it (MANT-C), and a way to monitor progress.
Should the founder stop selling once there’s a sales team?
Not completely. The founder moves to executive engagement, meeting senior people at prospects at the right moment, and gradually focuses on strategy, coaching and scaling.
Why do first sales hires often struggle?
Usually not because of the person, but because there was no process, onboarding or coaching to support them.
Building your startup’s sales engine?
Start with the questions every founder should answer, or talk it through with us.
