The first sales hire is among the most expensive and least reversible decisions a founder makes. Hiring too early is a common mistake. So is hiring in order to avoid selling.
Signs you may be ready
- Something repeats. You have closed enough deals to see a pattern in who buys, why and how.
- Someone else could follow it. A new person could take a qualified opportunity forward using a written process.
- There is lead flow. The hire will not be left waiting for work.
- You can coach. You have time to help them for the first ninety days.
- The economics work. You have modelled cost, ramp and payback honestly, including a period of underperformance.
Signs you are not ready
- Sales depends on your personal relationships and charisma, and you cannot describe how.
- You are hoping a salesperson will tell you what to sell, and to whom.
- There is no written ideal customer, process or pricing.
- You cannot afford the hire to take a long time to ramp.
- You want to stop selling altogether. A first hire needs more of your time, not less.
What kind of hire?
An SDR starts conversations. An account executive runs deals. A full-cycle seller does both. The right choice depends on where your constraint is: finding the right people, or closing them.
Decide the day-90 question now
Agree in advance what you will look for at ninety days, and what you will do if it is not there. It is easier to be fair when you decide before you are emotionally invested.
Hiring does not fix a process that does not exist. It exposes it.
The Readiness Checklist gives you a verdict, and the Capacity Planner shows what the hire does to your numbers over the first year.