Be the sales rep you wish to see in the world

What profile should I hire for my first sales rep? Scrappy up-and comer or seasoned VP? Answer: Neither.

Q: What profile should I hire for my first sales rep? Scrappy up-and comer or seasoned VP?
A: Neither.

You are the first sales rep.

One of your only jobs as founder is finding product-market fit. Your company is a submarine and customer conversations are your periscope.

They're the only way you actually see what's going around you: what customers like and respond to about your pitch, what they think of your pricing, who else they're considering, what else they think is important, etc.

If you let someone else peer through that periscope and describe the world to you, you're going to get a filtered version of reality.

And if it ends up not working (or, more likely, when it ends up not working), you're not going to know why. Is it because the product isn't right and needs to change, or because the person you hired isn't the right fit for the role?

I sold the first 100+ accounts at Pilot myself.

Until you've come up with a repeatable sales process that actually works, you're not ready to hire the sales rep. You are the sales rep.