From $0 to $1M ARR: How to Hire Your Early-Stage Sales Team

In the beginning, founders often lead sales themselves. But once you have early validation and some revenue, it’s time to bring in dedicated salespeople to scale from $0 to $1M ARR and beyond. Hiring that first sales team can be daunting – the wrong hires will slow you down, but the right ones will accelerate your growth tremendously. After going through this at Unify (I went from being the sole salesperson to a team of 7 AEs and SDRs within a year), I’ve distilled a few key lessons on early-stage sales hiring.

Here’s what I’ve learned about hiring account executives (AEs) in a startup:

Hire for “slope” over “intercept.”

Early sales at a startup is a grind. The product is immature, the processes are scrappy, and every week brings new challenges. You need reps who are highly adaptable and will improve rapidly – not just people who may have had one good year at a big company with tons of support. In other words, hire for growth trajectory (“slope”), not just a shiny resume (“intercept”).

We look for candidates who show hunger to learn and stretch beyond their comfort zone. Maybe they haven’t closed seven-figure deals yet, but they’re eager to get there. They take feedback well and get better each month. These high-slope individuals often turn into top performers and even future leaders as the company grows.

Hire reps in pairs.

If you’re committing to bringing on salespeople, consider hiring two, not just one. We made the mistake of hiring our first AE solo and realized we lost time by not having a comparison. When you have two new reps start together, a few benefits emerge:

• You can benchmark them against each other (if one is ramping much faster, you quickly see what “good” looks like).
• They push and motivate each other (a bit of friendly competition).
• If one doesn’t work out, you’re not back to square one.

In our case, when we eventually hired a pair of AEs simultaneously, they ramped faster and each helped onboard the other in certain areas of strength. It created a healthy competition that elevated their performance.

Look for AEs who thrive in ambiguity.

A startup sales role is very different from an established company sales role. At an early-stage startup, things change every week – pricing, product features, sales materials, target market, you name it. The best early AEs are those who don’t just tolerate this ambiguity, they embrace it.

In interviews, we probe for this quality. We ask things like: “Tell me about a time you had to figure something out on your own at work” or “What do you do when you’re given very little direction?” We favor candidates who light up at the idea of building something from nothing and who have a track record of being resourceful self-starters.

Great AEs brag about quota attainment.

This one’s straightforward: the best salespeople are proud of their results. When I look at a candidate’s LinkedIn or resume, I love seeing statements like “120% to quota in 3 of 4 quarters” or “#1 sales rep out of 20.” Top performers typically won’t shy away from highlighting their achievements.

If a salesperson’s resume is vague or focused on responsibilities rather than results, that’s a yellow flag. Early-stage startups need hitters – folks who have proven they can knock sales targets out of the park. Emphasize finding evidence of that competitive, results-driven nature.

Top AEs are motivated by money (and that’s okay).

It might sound cliché, but in sales, the people who really excel often care about making a lot of money. In an early-stage environment, you want someone who sees the upside in crushing their number and earning outsized commissions (and equity) as the company grows.

We want mission-driven team members, of course – they need to believe in the product and vision. But an AE who openly talks about being driven to be the top earner or retire early off stock options is likely to put in the hustle required to close deals in a tough setting. That drive can be a powerful asset, as long as it’s paired with ethics and customer empathy.

Hire top performers from “#2 or #3” companies.

When you’re sourcing candidates, consider looking at fast-growing companies in your space or adjacent spaces – not necessarily the #1, but the #2 or #3 player. Why? AEs at the category leader often have it a bit easier (brand recognition, inbound leads galore). But a star seller at a slightly lesser-known competitor likely has the hustle and experience selling against the odds. They might also be more attainable; the absolute top performers at the #1 company might be hard to lure away.

For example, if you’re in martech and everyone wants to hire ex-Salesforce reps, you might find gold in someone who was a top 5 rep at a smaller CRM startup. They often have the same skillset and fire in the belly, without the big-company baggage.

Test for deep product knowledge.

An interview staple for us is the mock demo. We ask AE candidates to give a 15-minute demo of the product they currently sell (or their last product, if they’re not currently selling). This is incredibly revealing. We get to see how they handle explaining a product, how they highlight value, and even how they manage questions or challenges.

Great candidates will come in prepared – they’ll know their product inside out and can communicate its benefits clearly. If someone struggles to demo a product they supposedly know well, that’s a bad sign. In a startup, AEs have to learn quickly and be credible product experts for prospects. The mock demo test lets us see that skill in action.

Expect (and demand) early impact.

Your first sales hires should not take six months to ramp. In our experience, a strong AE can start contributing within their first few weeks. In fact, several of our early AEs closed their first deals in the first month or two on the job and blew past their ramp quotas.

For instance, one of our recent AE hires was given a modest $10K first-month quota – and she closed $63K in ARR in her first month. Another rep we hired was so effective that we promoted him to lead the sales team after just one quarter because he was already operating at that level. These are the kinds of high-impact players you want early on.

Set the expectation that new sales hires should produce results fast (with appropriate support, of course). If they’re great, they will rise to the challenge. And if they struggle to get any traction after a few months, it’s a sign that perhaps the fit isn’t right (or something is off in your hiring criteria or onboarding process).

Final Thoughts: Building an early-stage sales team is one of the most important things you’ll do as a founder once you hit initial traction. The people you bring in will shape your customer relationships and revenue trajectory. Hire learners, hustlers, and high performers – people who see the chaos of a startup as an opportunity, not a downside.

Equally important, give those new hires what they need to win: clear goals, ample coaching, and lots of leads to work. (On that note, we made sure to invest in pipeline generation – our outbound plays and marketing efforts produced a surge of opportunities, so our new AEs had plenty of prospects to call on.) When you pair great hires with abundant pipeline, magic happens.

In our first year building the sales team, we grew ARR over 20x. The first million is always the hardest, but with the right team in place, you can build the foundation to blow past that milestone and keep growing.