Founders make a predictable mistake when hiring their first sales and demand gen roles. They hire people with track records at big, successful companies.

It makes sense on paper. You want to become a big successful company, so why not hire someone who has seen it firsthand?

These folks almost always struggle. It’s not their fault.

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Early-stage is a different sport

At a mature company, the brand opens doors. Inbound flows. The playbook exists. Sales engineers support every deal. Marketing provides air cover. The machine works. The inertia of success carries everyone forward. 

Your startup has none of this (yet). 

If you hired based on an impressive pedigree, they may have never sold without the machine behind them. They don’t specialize in building pipeline from nothing. Closing deals where they had to sell around the product probably isn’t their superpower.

Selling a mature product to enterprise buyers is an elite skillset. They’re just not the player you need on your team right now. They don't know how to make their own weather.

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Hire survivors instead

The number one trait to screen for is a track record of success under duress.

You want someone who survived a startup with poor product-market fit. A product with rough edges. No obvious channel. No defined buyer. You want someone who went through the meat grinder and had to get creative, collaborate across functions, and over-perform just to hit their number.

They succeeded in spite of the product. Or they helped the product find success.

Someone who worked at a big successful company may have hit quota despite their efforts. At the very least, they are not used to making their own weather.

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One organism, not silos

Big-company GTM often operates in silos. Demand gen throws leads over the wall. Sales blames marketing for lead quality. Marketing blames sales for not following up. The inertia of success gives everyone the luxury of optimizing for their own metrics.

Early-stage GTM cannot work this way. Sales and demand gen must operate as one unit. The feedback loop between "what's converting" and "what we're targeting" has to be immediate and continuous.

Survivors know this intuitively. They have had to be demand gen and sales at the same time. They have written their own outbound sequences. They have sat in on calls to hear what messaging landed. They embed with each other because they have never had the luxury of silos.

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GTM is a strategic product input

Survivors advocate for what they need to close deals.

They make proactive cases for how the product, onboarding UX, or pricing should change. They flag onboarding friction that kills expansion. They push back on pricing that does not match how buyers want to purchase. They understand that GTM is a strategic input to product, not the tail end of the engineering waterfall.

Big-company hires often lack this instinct. They are used to selling a finished product through established channels. They wait for product to ship, then find the best way to sell it. Survivors shape what gets shipped.

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This is not anti-experience or pro meat grinder

You're not planning to put your first hires through chaos. You've already built the foundation. As a founder, you’re validating the motion. The CRM is set up. There's pipeline to work. There's a channel that converts. 

But early-stage is unpredictable. The channel that works today may stop working. The product will have gaps. Deals will stall for reasons no one anticipated. You want someone who can run with the foundation you've built and grind when things get tough and opaque. 

That's why you screen for survivors. Not because you're hiring into chaos, but because you want someone who won't freeze when chaos arrives.

So, hire someone senior. Eight years at Salesforce does not usually prepare someone for your seed-stage startup. Multiple years at a struggling startup that found its footing does.

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How to screen for survivors

For your first AE (closer):

Founder-led GTM built the initial pipeline. Your AE inherits it and closes. Screen for people who can wrangle deals to the finish line without a polished playbook.

• Can they describe a deal they closed where the product was not ready?
• How do they handle objections that require product changes, not talk tracks?
• Do they talk about demand gen as a partner, or just a lead source?
• Have they influenced product decisions based on field feedback?
• Have they shepherded a deal through a long cycle with no playbook to follow?

For your first demand gen (pipeline builder):

Founder-led validated the initial motion. Your demand gen hire takes over pipeline building and scales what works. Screen for people who can build a new channel from scratch, not just optimize an existing one.

• Have they built pipeline without any brand awareness?
• Can they describe how they changed targeting based on sales feedback?
• Do they talk about sales as a partner, or as a conversion metric?
• Have they advocated for product or pricing changes based on what they learned?
• Can they describe building a channel from scratch versus optimizing an existing one?

For both:

• Ask about their hardest quarter. Listen for creativity, collaboration, and ownership.
• Ask what they would do in their first 30 days. Listen for "learn from sales/demand" before "build my playbook."
• Ask how they have made their own weather.

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Make this hire count

Your first GTM hires shape your trajectory more than almost any other early decision. Hire the person who has already survived what you're about to put them through. With your effort and a bit of luck, they'll thrive.

Need help building the foundation before you hire? That's what we do at QC Growth.

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