Founder looking to hire a Founding AE? Start here
About Founders Founding AEs Insights Book 15 min
Founding Account Executive Hub

The Founding AE seat looks like ownership.
Sometimes it is.

Most AEs find out which one they signed up for in month four — not month one. I was a Founding AE who took a company from $0 to $10M ARR. Now I interview every founder as if I were taking the job myself, then write down what excited me and what made me pause — so you can tell the difference before you say yes.

Published in Harvard Business Review, June 2026.

See open roles →
Monthly Founding AE call Fri, Oct 9 · 3pm ET Get invited

An hour on Google Meet with other Founding AEs going through the same things you are. Bring what’s stuck — outbound, a deal, your founder — and leave with what’s working for them. Free. Invites go through the private LinkedIn group.

What AEs say

"Dave helped me evaluate an opportunity I was on the fence about. His insights helped me make the right decision — saved me 6 months in a role that wasn't the right fit. I'll run other opportunities by him going forward."

Jake Woodrich
Jake Woodrich
Founding Account Executive
Founding AE atgen.video
Sales leadership atSalesforceOutreach
What is the Founding Account Executive Hub?

The Founding Account Executive Hub is a free network for Founding Account Executives — founding AEs, early-stage AEs, first sellers, whatever your company calls the title — at seed and Series A B2B SaaS companies — whether you’re considering the move, evaluating offers right now, or already in the seat with a founder who’s never sold. The 15-minute conversation is the entry point. From there: a coach who’s been in the seat, deal flow from 300+ founders, and a monthly group of Founding AEs working through what’s actually happening in the role.

Where are you?
Considering a Role Weighing an offer, reading the founder, working out if the seat is real. Everything before you sign. Start here In the Seat You took the job. Ramping, building the motion, and the community of operators doing it alongside you. Start here
Already in the seat and wondering? When Is It Time to Leave Your Founding AE Role? The biggest sign is a founder who spends their time on product instead of with customers. The rest: what a founder should be able to tell you, whether anything is moving without you, and whether your pay reflects the risk. Read it
The numbers that matter if you’re weighing a move
$400K+
top OTE across the five seats open now, starting at $200K. Every one is listed below.
163
Founding AEs in the community: the private group, the monthly call and the newsletter.
$0→$10M
ARR I built as a Founding AE. I’ve sat in the seat you’re considering.
Open now

Every seat I’m filling is on this page.

Five seats across four companies, $200K–$400K+ OTE. That’s the complete list — there’s no back pocket of unlisted searches, and a new one goes up the week it opens. If nothing fits yet, tell me what you’re looking for.

See all roles
What’s real

The proof the product sells: customers, revenue, deal size, cycle length and the pipeline that exists today.

Where the risk is

What isn’t proven yet. If I can’t name the risk in a seat, I haven’t finished vetting it.

What I’d push on

The question I’d ask the founder before signing, if I were the one taking the job.

$250–300K
OTE · True 50/50 split
Remote US, East Coast preferred
RevOps AI

Most founding AE roles give you no leader. This one gives you a boss who’s selling alongside you.

The data layer AI agents need to work, pulling Salesforce and the rest of the revenue stack into one structure. ~$2M ARR, ~150 customers, an ex-CRO founder with real inbound. You’d be seller two in the US.

The risk
The US motion isn’t proven. Nobody has ramped and closed in this market yet, and the incumbents have distribution, installed bases and years of data.
What I’d push on
The ramp. Read the schedule, the commission triggers and the pipeline math behind them before you sign.
Read the full write-upBook 15 minutes
$350–400K+
OTE · $175–200K base
Remote US, SF preferred
Marketing measurement

A founder with no sales training closed $3–4M on his own. Imagine what a trained seller closes here.

Marketing measurement sold to CMOs. ~50 customers, cash-flow positive, ~$5M of pipeline already waiting. You’d be the only salesperson alongside the founder.

The risk
A prior AE hire failed — not on product, on urgency and outbound drive. The founder can open doors; he can’t hand you a finished motion.
What I’d push on
Whether year one is judged on pipeline built or revenue closed, and how the founder hands active deals over to you.
Read the full write-upBook 15 minutes
$200–300K
OTE · $100–150K base
Enterprise: remote US, NY preferred
Mid-market: NYC office
Retail AI, loss prevention · 2 seats

The legacy vendors’ own sellers say their customers are asking for this. They can’t build it.

AI loss prevention running on cameras retailers already own. 200–300 buyers in the country, and they all know each other. Two seats: enterprise, remote with New York preferred, and mid-market, in the New York office alongside the founder.

The risk
A pure hunting seat: nobody hands you a book. Early revenue is real but concentrated, and the enterprise motion is untested at scale.
What I’d push on
The first-year definition of success, and how the targets account for starting without pipeline.
Read the full write-upBook 15 minutes
$250–300K
OTE · $125–150K base
East Coast required
Healthcare AI

Hundreds of AI scribes exist for physicians. For nurses, the count is in single digits.

A $50M Series A healthcare AI company opening the US market with documentation built for nurse workflows. You’d be the third seller on the US team.

The risk
Earlier than it looks. Two sellers started in August, nobody has ramped or closed in the US yet, and enterprise cycles are long.
What I’d push on
Whether a successful first year means pipeline built or revenue closed. A well-run company will have a clear answer.
Read the full write-upBook 15 minutes
Opening Q1 2027 Logistics tech backed by a major US airline. Third dedicated seller, $300–350K OTE. Read the write-up

How the last placements are going

A seller I placed at the healthcare AI company called me unprompted, weeks into the seat, to say it’s good and that they need more people. That’s a read on the product and the founders, not proof the US motion converts — nobody knows that yet, and the write-up says so.

The logistics tech company where I filled a seat in Q3 is coming back for a third dedicated seller in Q1 2027.

Whether or not I have a role for you

What do you get from a call if none of my roles fit?

A sharper version of your own pitch. Most of my candidate calls end without a match, and every one of them ends with something you can change that week, for a role with me or with anyone else. Here’s what that looked like on recent calls.

A title founders can find

A seller who was the founding hire at a startup and closed about $800K there had “Head of Growth” as his title. Founders searching for a Founding AE never saw him. The fix: retitle as Founding AE and put the $800K in the headline.

The right numbers, not the biggest ones

An enterprise seller led with $100M in revenue at a large company. Founders read that as “needs a big machine.” The fix: lead with helping a startup grow from 6 to 50 people and closing its first $700K.

Short tenures, explained

A strong seller with a string of short stints looked like a job-hopper on paper. Two of those companies had been acquired. Saying so on the profile turned “why did you leave?” into a better conversation.

An honest read on timing

Sometimes the useful answer is “not yet”: a realistic OTE for where you are now, or one more year to build the track record that gets you the seat you want. Better to hear it in fifteen minutes than from six rejections.

And you stay in either way: the private LinkedIn group, the monthly Founding AE call and the newsletter. When a seat opens that fits you, it goes up on this page and I tell you directly.

What do AEs ask before they take a founding seat?

These four came up again and again on my candidate calls this fall. Here’s how I’d check each one, and where the write-ups above already answer it.

“Is the quota a dream or a reality?”

Test it against what’s already closing. Divide the quota by the average deal size, then compare that deal count to what the founder closed in the last twelve months and to the pipeline that exists today. Every write-up publishes those inputs — deal size, cycle length and pipeline — so you can run the math before the first call. The marketing measurement seat, for example, starts with roughly $5M of pipeline already built.

“What are you worried about with this company?”

Every write-up has a section that answers this. In the healthcare AI seat, nobody has ramped or closed in the US yet. In the RevOps AI seat, the US motion is unproven and the incumbents have years of data. If a recruiter can’t name the risk in a role, they either haven’t looked or aren’t telling you.

“How do commissions actually get paid?”

Ask four things: when commission pays out, whether it’s triggered by signature or by cash collected, whether there’s a draw or guarantee in the first months, and how the ramp steps up. Those mechanics decide what you take home in year one more than the OTE number does. Founding AE compensation has the market ranges to hold them against.

“How will my number be set if nobody has proven the motion?”

Ask whether year one is judged on pipeline built or revenue closed. Three of the four write-ups name that as the first thing I’d push on before signing, because in an unproven market the answer is the difference between a great seat and a frustrating one. The questions worth asking before you sign covers the rest.

Why this is worth your time

I talk to 300+ founders a year. That’s a live map of the market — and I share it with the Founding AEs I know.

Founders come to me because they want the ownership-vs-title read before they hire — the same thinking that ran in Harvard Business Review. That gives me a real-time view of who’s actually growing, which teams are real, and where a founding seat is set up to work instead of quietly burn someone out.

You see wider
Perspective on what’s out there, what’s interesting, and who’s growing — from 300+ founder conversations a year.
You’re not solo
A room of Founding AEs sharing what’s landing, what’s stuck, and how they’re navigating the seat.
Fits find you
When a role could fit you down the road, you hear about it from me directly — because I know you.
Join the Founding AE LinkedIn Group

The room where I share what I’m seeing and Founding AEs trade notes. Free to join — get on my radar so I can point the right things your way.

What you get
–A coach across the move, not one decision — wherever you are. Curious what’s out there, not sure if it’s time, stuck on whether to stay. Bring the question, not the conclusion.
–A real-time read on what’s working in the role — outbound, AI tools, tactics. Not what worked five years ago. What landed yesterday.
–A monthly group of Founding AEs trading what’s landing, what’s stuck, and what to try next.
–Deal flow from 300+ founders — every role I’m working is on the featured roles page, with who each one is for.

All of it is free.

"I've sold with Dave. If he calls, I pick up — and I send people his way."

Jay Canete
Jay Canete
Founding AE · First hire on Dave's team at Outreach

"Dave just gave me his straight read and coached me through it. If you're a Founding AE and you're not in this network, you're navigating blind."

Brennen Amann
Brennen Amann
Founding Account Executive
The monthly group

Working sessions with other Founding Account Executives.

One Google Meet a month. Working sessions on what’s actually happening in the seat — how we’re leveraging Claude and other tech to move ahead, founder behavior to navigate, what’s landing in outbound right now, ramp problems no one warned you about.

It’s the room you wish existed at every Founding AE company — full of people who get the seat because they’re sitting in one, somewhere else.

Free. Access is through the private LinkedIn group, and every request is reviewed individually. Not everyone is right for the room.

What a session covers
How we’re leveraging Claude and other tech

The tools and workflows people are actually using to move faster — research, prep, outreach, follow-up. What’s working this month, shared straight across the room.

Founder behavior to navigate

The patterns people are working around — without naming names. How others have handled the same thing.

What’s landing in outbound

Channels, hooks, messaging. What’s working this month vs. what worked six months ago and stopped.

Next session Friday, October 9 · 3pm ET

Request to join the group
Is the offer fair?

Most Founding AEs don’t actually know.

Before anything else: what I won’t do is pretend to assess equity. There are too many unknowns at this stage. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Every AE wonders if they’re underpaid. The honest answer is most don’t have a way to find out. Levels.fyi doesn’t cover $1M ARR companies. The mentors you’d ask ran the role before AI changed it — their reference points are years out of date.

I see comp every week across stages, geographies, and founder profiles. I’ll give you a real read on the OTE structure — whether the quota is real or founder hopium, and whether the ramp terms are reasonable for what’s actually built.

The questions you should be asking

Does the quota math hold up?

A $1.2M quota means nothing if the pipeline math doesn’t support it. I can usually tell within ten minutes of looking at the GTM motion.

Are the ramp terms reasonable?

Three-month ramps at companies without a repeatable motion are how Founding AEs end up working for free.

Is the offer better than you think?

Sometimes. I’ll tell you that too. The goal is a real read, not a renegotiation.

Get a read on your offer
Across multiple processes

If it’s a no, you’ll know why.

You spent eight hours on a case study. Wrote a 30-60-90. Ran a mock discovery call with the founder. Prepped for the panel. You showed up.

Then the email lands: “They’ve decided to go in a different direction.” No detail. No context. Nothing you can use the next time.

That’s the standard recruiter close. It’s not how I run it.

If you interview for a role I’m placing and it doesn’t land, you’ll get a real read — what worked, what didn’t, and what to change going into the next conversation. The hours you put in become signal you can use, not effort that disappeared.

01
The founder’s read

The real reasons, not the polite version. What landed, what didn’t, and what they were looking for that didn’t come through.

02
My read

What I see across 300+ founder conversations — where strong AEs get tripped up in this kind of process, and what I’d change for the next one.

03
What’s next

Roles aren’t one-shots. The next match is often a better fit than the one that didn’t close. I keep tracking.

Vouched for by the people who’ve worked with me

A network is only as good as the operator behind it.

Three people who’ve seen me from different angles — the leader who hired me, an AE I coached into a leadership seat, and an AE building her career on the same playbook now.

From the leader who hired me

“DR is a top 1% of 1% type of sales leader. He attracted, retained, and promoted top talent and was an amazing cross-departmental collaborator.”

Mark Kosoglow
Mark Kosoglow
Former SVP Sales, Outreach
From an AE I coached into leadership

“Hands down one of the top sales leaders I’ve ever worked for. I’d work for him again in a heartbeat.”

Curt Clauss
Curt Clauss
Founding AE at Samaya AI · ex-Harvey, ex-Outreach
From an AE on the playbook now

“DR was instrumental in my development to become a more strategic seller — coaching me to think bigger, call my shot, and be a broken record.”

Laura Roumani
Laura Roumani
Strategic Account Executive · ex-Outreach
Published in Harvard Business Review
Startup Founders Need a New Sales Playbook

The same thinking the Hub runs on, in HBR — drawn from my interviews with 250+ founders on why early sales motions stall and what actually moves buyers in crowded, AI-driven markets. Co-authored with Prof. Vincent Onyemah of Babson College, June 2026.

Read it on HBR.org

Most of these seats are a founder closing on force of personality, handing you a motion that only works when they run it — and you find out in month four. I took a company from $0 to $10M as a Founding AE. Below is what I wish someone had handed me before I said yes.

Start reading

Three reads per path. Start with the first one.

Written for AEs, not founders — by someone who took the seat, got it wrong once, and now talks to the people doing the hiring. The full library sits behind each path.

Considering a Role

All considering-a-role reads

Before you sign: reading the founder, testing whether the seat is real, and knowing what a good offer looks like.

Start here What Is a Founding AE? The role, the pay ranges, and how it differs from a VP of Sales — the plain-English definition before you go further. Read it How to Read a Founder Before You Sign You’re not evaluating a company — you’re evaluating one person. Three signals worth more than the pitch deck. Read it What to Look for in a Founding AE Opportunity A big quota and a “great founder” tell you nothing. The signals that separate a real seat from a good comp number. Read it

In the Seat

All in-the-seat reads

After you sign: ramping without a playbook, and turning founder instinct into a motion you can run.

Start here The First 90 Days: Complete Guide Land, Extract, Translate, Own — the four phases, with what the work looks like at each stage. Read it Your First Week as a Founding AE The offer is signed and you want to run demos. Don’t. Week one is three structured conversations with your founder. Read it Why Your Founder Can’t Give You the Playbook It isn’t withholding and it isn’t disorganization. The playbook lives as instinct — extracting it is your job. Read it
Before It Scales · The Weekly Read

The playbook doesn't exist yet. You're writing it.

A weekly newsletter for founding AEs selling before the playbook exists — mostly the craft of the job, sometimes the career around it. Every week, one honest read on what's actually working in the seat: what's landing in outbound, how to read the founder across from you, and how to sell through the ambiguity. Five minutes a week.

Common questions

Frequently asked questions

What Founding AE roles are you working right now?

Every Founding AE role I'm working is listed on this page and on the featured roles page — there are no unlisted searches. Right now that's five seats across four companies, with OTEs from $200K to $400K+: remote across the US, one seat in a New York office, and one that requires living on the East Coast. New searches go up the week they open. The easiest way in: send me a connection request on LinkedIn and tell me what you're looking for. If I see a fit, I'll walk you through the role and the motion — sometimes with a video from the founder — so you can decide whether it's exciting before we ever get on a call. I won't put a role in front of you that doesn't fit.

I’m not actively looking yet — is the Founding AE Hub still for me?

Yes — especially. The reps who land the best Founding AE roles started the conversation six months before they needed to. By the time you’re three offers deep with severance running out, your options are whatever happens to be in front of you that week. Start the conversation early and you get to be selective when it matters.

I’m already in a Founding AE role — what’s in it for me?

If your founder has never sold, there’s no senior IC to learn from, and the CRO hasn’t been hired yet, you’re translating a motion no one wrote down — alone. The Hub gives you a coach who’s been in the seat, plus a monthly group of other Founding AEs working through the same problems somewhere else. It’s the room you wish existed at every Founding AE company.

How does the monthly Founding AE group work?

One Google Meet a month with other Founding AEs. Working sessions on what’s actually happening in the seat — how we’re leveraging Claude and other tech to move ahead, founder behavior to navigate, what’s landing in outbound right now. Free. Access is through the private LinkedIn group, and every request is reviewed individually. Not everyone is right for the room.

Is this Founding AE offer fair?

Comp varies by stage, motion, and how much risk you're absorbing, but the working range for US seed and Series A roles is $100K–$175K base and $200K–$350K OTE. A Founding AE at a seed company with no proven motion should expect more equity and accelerators than someone joining at Series A with a working playbook. The full breakdown by seller tier is in the Founding AE salary guide. Before evaluating any single offer in isolation, get context on what the rest of the market looks like right now — which founders are worth pursuing and what comp ranges are reasonable for your specific situation. That's what the 15-minute conversation is for.

How do I tell if the founder is strong enough to bet a year on?

Look for clarity, not charisma. Strong founders can answer who buys, why they buy now, and how deals actually close. They have closed enough deals themselves to know the pattern, written it down, and need leverage to scale what already works. Founders who want you to figure out sales for them rarely succeed. The right test isn't whether the pitch is exciting. It's whether the work that comes next is real.

What questions should I ask before saying yes?

At minimum: who's already buying and why; what happens to your quota in month four; how the founder will support you when deals stall; what the actual ICP is, not the aspirational one; and what changed for the buyers who closed most recently. If the founder can't answer these clearly, you're walking into a search problem, not a sales role.

How do I set myself up to ramp successfully?

Most Founding AEs fail because nobody designed their ramp. The motion exists in the founder's head and they're left to figure it out alone. Before starting, push the founder to document what's already closing, identify the patterns across recent wins, and structure your first 30 days around extracting that knowledge rather than generating new pipeline. You're a translator first, a closer second.

What does the Founding AE Hub cost?

Nothing. The Hub is a free resource. The 15-minute conversation, the ongoing coaching, and the monthly group are all free, no obligation, no pitch. Dave benefits when more vetted Founding AEs are in the network, so helping AEs make better decisions about roles is part of how he builds a reputation founders trust. AEs who engage with the Hub may also be considered for live searches when the fit is right.

What kinds of AEs is the Hub for?

Early-stage AEs evaluating offers, currently in a Founding AE role and questioning whether to stay, considering whether to take their first Founding AE role, or trying to navigate the broader job market at seed and Series A. If you're early enough in your career to still be making big career bets, the Hub is for you.

What happens next

Three steps. You decide at each one.

01
Fifteen minutes

Tell me where you are now and what you want in your next seat. No résumé required.

02
A straight read

Which roles fit, including “none of them” and why, and how to sharpen your positioning either way.

03
If one fits

I introduce you to the founder with the write-up, and prep you on what to push on before you sign.

Fifteen minutes. No pitch.

You talk, I listen, and I tell you what I’m seeing — the roles worth pursuing, the comp that’s reasonable for where you are, and whether it’s even the right time to move. Even if the honest answer is to stay put.

Book 15 Minutes with Dave →