How to hire a Founding Account Executive

• You have closed the first five to ten deals yourself and can describe the pattern.
• You have written down the ICP and the objection map.
• You can commit to being in-cycle on every deal with them for the first quarter.

• Own the pipeline from qualified opportunity to closed-won.
• Turn founder-led plays into a repeatable playbook with real artefacts.
• Run discovery, demo, and negotiation across the ICP.
• Build the first version of forecast hygiene, CRM discipline, and win/loss review.
• Partner with the founder on pricing experiments and packaging.

• Sold a technical product from a similar zero-to-one company in the last three years.
• Comfortable running discovery without a marketing-generated pipeline behind them.
• Written record of individual number attainment (not just team quota).
• Ability to explain the last deal they lost and what they changed after it.

• Domain experience in your buyer's world (fintech, devtools, healthtech, etc.).
• Prior founding AE role at a company that scaled past $10m ARR.

• Only ever hit quota inside a mature GTM machine with SDR-supplied leads.
• Talks about pipeline coverage without being able to name last week's deals.
• Wants a large draw for six months without a ramp scoreboard.

• AEs at your investors' portfolio companies who were early at a company that scaled.
• SDR-to-AE promotions from strong GTM shops (Gong, Airtable, Ramp, Attio).
• Warm intros from your first ten customers — the best AE candidate has already sold into your ICP.

1. 45-minute founder chat on why sales at this company, not any company.
2. Discovery role-play against a real ICP profile you assign in advance.
3. Deal review: they walk through their most recent closed-won and closed-lost.
4. Reference calls with two managers and one peer.

**Founding Account Executive at [Company]**

[Company] is [one-line on product and traction]. Founders have closed the first $[x]k in ARR and now need a first AE to turn founder-led selling into a repeatable motion.

**What you will own**
- Full-cycle sales from qualified opportunity through close.
- Discovery, demo, negotiation, and forecasting.
- Building the first playbook: ICP, objection map, competitor battle cards.

**In your first 90 days you will**
- Close [$X] in new logo revenue.
- Run [Y] discovery calls with our ICP.
- Ship the first written sales playbook, reviewed with the founder weekly.

**About you**
- 3-6 years selling a technical product, ideally at a zero-to-one company.
- Individual number attainment you can defend on a whiteboard.
- Comfortable prospecting without SDR support in year one.

**Compensation**
[Base] + [OTE] + [equity]. Real accelerators over-plan.