From founder-led sales to scalable revenue organization
2023: PLG is the key
The tech start-up world has appropriately gravitated to companies that are principally founded by technicians and engineers. The focus has shifted to product led growth and rapid iteration. These are positive and exciting shifts.
Strong founders - who deeply know their customer, their use case, and their product - can brute force their first key sales.
It’s an awesome process of learning the customer, the pain, the market and appropriate solutions.
The Struggle to Sustainable Revenue
Beyond this initial validation and first set of customers, a GTM system and team needs to be built.
The answer from most VC’s and technical founders is to hire a mythical superstar sales leader.
One who can take over the act of selling from the founders. But that’s not all they need to do to succeed.
Before your hire your sales leader, you need to:
⚙ Set up the system, landscape and the processes.
🎓 Be an expert in the details of the sales methodology.
🔁 Implement a repeatable sales process, validated by getting two AEs to quota.
💬 Craft sales enablement, enablement strategies, and education.
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- Doug Merritt, former CEO, Splunk
If you build it, they will come
To do this right, you can’t hire first. The right foundations and architecture of a scalable revenue organization must be put in place. You need to rapidly study, observe and learn - then the first people can be recruited to own, nurture and evolve it.
Trusted Advisors for Hypergrowth Companies
We are founders & sales leaders who know how to build a revenue organization from zero to scale.
We’ve designed this build-for-purpose program to efficiently & effectively download what you’ve learned as a founder in sales to a team that can carry it forward.
We will make sure you have the best-in-class sales team, systems, and governance so you can attract a best-in-class sales leader.
Our Principals
Derek Evjenth
Expertise
Revenue
LinkedIn
Brian Sowards
Expertise
Operations
LinkedIn
We deliver a next-gen tech stack, designed for iteration
You, and your growing sales team, get bespoke workflows immediately that map to what matters for execution right now.
From there, in a generative and evolutionary way, we rapidly build the right sales motions and insights from the ground up. Because your tech stack is equipped to adapt, we fuel a continuous listening and learning system to proactively encourage continuous adaptation with tools like
Set baseline playbooks for different stages of growth
Use today’s best practices for the sales motion that’s right for you, right now, and beyond
Attract great sales talent because the engine revenue engine is ready for optimization
Expert guidance from our circle of advisors
Our Circle of Excellence
Every company that has had great growth, has used a very specific GTM motion. We can source insights & guidance from those leaders for you, your team, and your board.
Doug Merritt
Title
Former CEO
Company
Splunk, Baynote, SAP
Highlight
Lead from 1,000 to 6,000
LinkedIn
Tom Gwynn
Title
Dir. Enterprise Sales
Company
WIZ
Highlight
First hire, $0 to $100M in 24 months
LinkedIn
David Justice
Title
CRO
Company
PagerDuty
Highlight
Former EVP at Salesforce
LinkedIn
Kevin Youkilis
Title
CEO
Company
LOMA
Highlight
3x All-Star, world series champion, gold glove winner w/ Boston Red Sox
LinkedIn
Paul Huelskamp
Title
Co-Founder, CEO
Company
Moxion
Highlight
Top Y-Combinator company, Amazon & Microsoft backed
LinkedIn
David Rudolf
Title
CEO
Company
Advrider
Highlight
Serial entrepreneur with multiple 7-figure exits
LinkedIn
Austin Stefani
Title
VP Americas
Company
Rubrik
Highlight
Former SAP and EMC
LinkedIn
You are making a $1.5M+ decision,
de-risk it for the cost of 1 hire
Hiring in tech sales is competitive, tough, and risky.
For the cost of one hire, you can de-risk your GTM motion by deploying Drivetrain.
Baseline Salaries
Sales Leader: $350k + equity
(2) AEs: $250k + equity
(2) BDRs: $125k + equity
Marketing: $200k + equity
Partnerships: $220k + equity
RevOps: $150k + equity
These hires are designed to function as a team.
Drivetrain builds the fabric that makes them successful:
bring them in at the right time
equip them from Day 1 to succeed
demonstrate their effectiveness
This is how you hire a
Tier 1 sales leader who is fired up to take the helm and lead them.
Drivetrain Pricing: Annual agreement, 60 day out-clause
We provide:
Fractional sales leadership consulting
Sales motion strategy
Sales organization hiring architecture
Rapid implementation of sales enablement
RevOps tech stack
By day 60, you’ll be organized, clear on who to hire, and have your first system for running sales as a team.
What’s next
We’ll mutually evaluate if it make sense to continue. If so, we’ll take a warrant for total contract value and you can opt-in on the additional services that make sense for your business.
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