GTM: The shift from founder-led to repeatable sales
Taking the magic from founder-led sales and driving scalable, repeatable GTM in sub-scale SaaS
The Situation
Here’s the situation. You’re stepping into a sub-scale SaaS company who’s had little to no sales team. Most if not all the major deals have been led and closed by the founder. Investors and PE firms are excited because “If they can get traction with no professional go-to-market investment, then imagine what could happen with professional leadership”. Sound familiar?
This is one of the most common patterns I’ve seen in navigating the awkward teenage years of B2B SaaS.
In startup mode, a founder is typically responsible for the majority of sales which can seem like *magic* to others. This isn’t necessarily because they are world-class sellers, although those exist, but because
The idea (product) is still being crystallized
Early opportunities come from the founders’ rolodex within the industry Without proof points, the customer is buying on faith or prior credibility in the company (founder) to execute.
The founder is in a position to influence product and sales at a rapid pace that others in the company just don’t have the same level of autonomy and juice to be able to influence.
In the awkward teenage years, the dynamics are different. Case studies exist (hopefully), the pace to influence is slower, and enterprise value rides on the ability for more than just the founder’s to be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Thus, the need to create repeatable selling becomes a necessity - and many times, a big shift in how the business operates.
The Math
Let’s say to reach $5M in ARR, a company with an ACV of $50k would need 100 customers. If it takes 5 years to get there, that’s 20 customers signed per year, not including churn or 1-2 deals per month. It’s not too farfetched to think that a founder could have their hand in a deal a month.
To get from $5 to $30M in ARR, that same company would need to sign 500 MORE customers. That’s selling a lot more volume, and requires repeatability beyond what a founder can have their hands in. Not to mention, at that scale, there’s a bigger team to corral as well as more board members and investors that take up the founder’s bandwidth.
So, what are the “tells” if this isn’t solved?
Founders get tired and fall into the mentality of “If I’m not running it, then deals won’t get done.”
Good talent gets fatigued because their best sales tool is to escalate to the founder…and it’s hard to get their time so deals get stuck.
Board members get worried because bookings are unpredictable and most of the sales team is missing quota
Needless to say, this is a dangerous place to be as there’s a ceiling to the growth of the company, and everyone is stressed in the process.
The Shift
So, if the problem is clear, why is it so commonplace for this issue to persist through growth stage of companies?
The exec/founder needs to “get it” and acknowledge the problem, “want it” and is willing to relinquish control, and “has the capacity to do it” which in many cases requires soliciting help from other team members. In my experience, they typically “get it” and “want it” - mostly because they have to and there’s enough board influence and pressure to check those boxes. The frustration comes in on the “capacity to do it”.
The founder holds immeasurable value due to their built-in credibility with pre-existing relationships, instinct of the product/industry, knowledge of the product and where it can go, and ability to rally their team into having all hands on deck to support customers (in many cases, unsustainably). While it’s not always the case, often times a founder exhibits an “innovator” persona - they get excited on generating new ideas and solutions to solve hard problems.
Building repeatable sales is about process and enablement. It takes a certain discipline of systems thinking to codify institutional knowledge and behavior in a way that others can follow. This is a departure from the “innovator” who by definition is disrupting an existing process they find in their customer base, the exact opposite of building repeatability. That’s not the person you want solving this problem - and often times the source of why the common “tells” listed above exist throughout the growth stage of SaaS companies.
A Way Forward
Each set of circumstances is different but here are some common tips on a way forward through the big shift from founder-led to repeatable sales. For board members, operating partners, and advisors, it’s also on you to coach and guide the CEO/founder along this journey. They may not inherently know what good looks like, so show them. Advise from personal past experience, introduce relevant portfolio companies going through similar journeys, encourage them to hire for the right leaders / right seats.
Clear the decks - The founder must…
“Get it” - acknowledge that growth is capped if this isn’t solved
“Want it” - realize their impact is much greater in creating many other great sellers, rather than selling themselves.
“Capacity to do it” - admission that their strength is not in process and enablement so go get someone that has God-given talent for what needs to be done.
Hire seasoned sales leadership - only after you’ve cleared the decks will new sales leadership be successful. They’ll want some rope. Every business is different, but the most successful sales leaders I’ve seen at this stage are good sales coaches and deal-makers. That’s because there’s still plenty to discover, experiment, and enable the teams to then go repeat - varying content, positioning of value, leverage of trials or pilots, getting past IT and budget hurdles. If you limit to a good sales coach, you miss the ability to experiment and iterate on the process. Limit to a great deal maker, and you’ve just replicated your founder issue, except worse, because they’re less plugged into the product direction than the founder was.
Hire a solution consultant - bring on a pre-sales solution expert (pre-sales engineer, solution engineer, solution consultant). His/her job is to shadow the founder on as many sales calls as possible. The ideal candidate is:
From the industry you serve. They have instant credibility walking into a room with a customer
Disciplined documenter. Gets a knack out of enabling others.
Technical depth. Can be a trusted partner to the product organization. Proper discovery and design, understanding the nuances given a set of product constraints.
For PLG motions, build out your “solution consultant” in product - same outcome as above which is to demonstrate usage and validate value. The biggest difference is the self-serve / self-discovery of value vs. sales-driven demos and business cases. Map your customer journey from awareness through adoption and expansion…then instrument your product and design GTM processes to support that. e.g. usage analytics through critical moments of the journey, in-app onboarding guides and tool tips, gated features and CTAs that trigger a sales follow-up, distributable reporting and analytics to show value across multiple users.
Scale through product marketing - develop a scrappy product marketing function. Their job is to synthesize the needs of the market, value props for customers, synthesize external facing product roadmap, and arm the field team to go forth and conquer. This is pouring fuel on the fire. While there are product marketers that can create from scratch, most in my experience operate best when there’s some level of documentation and information flow between sales and product to tweak and work off of. Hire too early, and documentation can still be rather sparse or rapidly evolving causing product marketers to find themselves “chasing” product or sales more than they’d like.
Are you going through this journey of shifting from founder-led to repeatable sales? What hurdles are you running into and what tips do you have for other? Comment below!