Founding AE Installation

Your first sales hire
will make or break
the motion.

Most Founding AE hires fail not because the candidate was wrong, but because the role was unclear, the system wasn't ready, and the search started too late. This engagement fixes all three.

Book an intro call →
What you get
01
Product review
Understand the product as if you were selling it — why you win, where you lose, what excites buyers
02
Assets review
Review everything available to share and excite candidates — what's compelling, what's missing
03
Access to vetted candidates
Direct network of founding AEs — no cold search, no job boards
04
Structured hiring framework
Interview process, evaluation criteria, offer structure
05
Founder interview for fast ramp
I interview the founder and translate what I'd want to know if I were taking the job — so the AE is set up to succeed from day one
Who this is for

You're closing deals.
You're not sure the motion is ready to hand off.

This engagement is built for B2B founders at the seed and Series A stage — typically between $500K and $10M ARR — who are running sales themselves and need to transition out without breaking what's working.

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You're closing deals on founder instinct and need someone who can run the motion without you

The deals are coming in, but they depend on you being in the room. That's not a repeatable motion — it's a dependency.

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You've raised and every week without a seller is costing you runway and market window

Post-raise, time is the scarcest resource. A wrong hire costs more than a slow search. A slow search costs more than most founders realize.

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You don't want to start from scratch with a recruiter who doesn't understand early-stage sales

Most recruiters optimize for speed and placement fees. This is an operator search — it requires pattern recognition that comes from 250+ founder conversations, not a LinkedIn filter.

What's included

Everything needed to hire right
the first time.

A bad Founding AE hire doesn't just cost the salary. It costs the guaranteed ramp, the months you waited to find out it wasn't working, and the full search and install cycle to start over. When you factor in missed pipeline, lost runway, and the opportunity cost of a quarter or two without a functioning seller, you're looking at $100–200K and six to twelve months you don't get back. This engagement is designed to make sure that doesn't happen.

Product review
Before candidates are approached, I get deep on the product — why you win, where you lose, what creates urgency in buyers. I need to be excited about what I'm selling before I ask anyone else to be.
Assets review
I review everything available to share with candidates — deck, case studies, press, customer stories. What's compelling gets used. What's missing gets flagged. Strong candidates want to see evidence before they commit.
Vetted candidate network
Direct access to a community of founding AEs who have been evaluated, not just sourced. These are operators who know what early-stage actually means.
Structured hiring process
Interview framework, evaluation criteria, reference check structure, and offer guidance. No guessing at which candidate is right — a process that surfaces the answer.
Founder interview for fast ramp
I interview the founder and translate the information into what I'd want to know if I were taking the job — deal patterns, buyer objections, what's worked and what hasn't. The AE gets a running start instead of spending months extracting what the founder already knows.
Onboarding structure
First 30, 60, and 90 day milestones so both the founder and the AE know what success looks like and when to course-correct.
How it works

Every step is designed to
derisk the hire.

Most Founding AE hires fail at predictable points — wrong profile, unprepared candidate, no ramp structure. This process addresses each one before it becomes a problem.

01
Product review — so I can sell it

I start by getting deep on the product — not a surface read, but the kind of understanding that lets me answer hard questions from a skeptical AE. Why does it win? Where does it lose? What makes a buyer act now versus later? I need to be genuinely excited about what I'm representing before I ask anyone to stake their career on it.

02
Assets review — so candidates have evidence

Strong Founding AE candidates do their homework. They want case studies, customer proof, press, and a clear picture of the commercial traction so far. I review everything available, identify what will resonate with the candidates we're targeting, and flag what's missing before the first conversation.

03
Source from the network — no cold search

Candidates come from a vetted community of Founding AEs who have been evaluated over time — not cold sourced from LinkedIn the day you need them. This skips the part of the search that takes the most time and produces the most noise. The candidates who see this opportunity are already known quantities.

04
Structured hiring process — so the decision is clear

Interviews, scorecards, reference checks, and a final evaluation against the operator profile. The goal is to give both you and the candidate enough information to make the right decision — not to sell them on the role. The wrong candidate in the seat is worse than a longer search.

05
Founder interview — so the AE can ramp fast

I interview the founder and translate everything into what I'd want to know if I were taking the job myself — the objections that come up, how the founder handles them, what buyers care about most, and the institutional knowledge that's never written down anywhere. The goal is to set the AE up for success from day one, not leave them to figure it out over their first quarter.

"

Dave delivered strong candidates quickly — and the quality was there. He maintains a real community of founding AEs so he's not starting from scratch on every search. As a European company hiring in the US, that kind of operator relationship is hard to find.

Philipp Wolf, VP Global Sales, Voize
Philipp Wolf
VP Global Sales, Voize
Why this is different
→Not a recruiter. An advisor who has run this role and placed it.
→Gets deep on the product before approaching a single candidate.
→A real network — not a LinkedIn search started the day you call.
→I interview the founder and translate it into what I'd want to know if I were taking the job — so the AE starts fast.

The search starts with a 30-minute conversation.

We'll talk through where you are in the motion, what the role needs to look like, and whether the timing is right. No pitch. Just an honest read on what it takes to get this hire right.

Book an intro call →