Founders Should Avoid Hiring a Sales Leader in the First Years
Carlos Delatorre · Carlos Delatorre, CRO @Harness: Why Every Sales Rep Should Do Pipeline Generation | E1251 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jan 24, 2025 · at 5:24
Carlos Delatorre, CRO at Harness and former CRO at MongoDB and Navan, advises early-stage founders on structuring their initial sales organization.
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 19.8s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Don't hire a leader yet. Hire individual contributor. At first just hire SDRs and you be the rep so that you get, I think for an early stage company, the CEO really has to develop the plays, figure out the message, at least that initial message.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Carlos Delatorre
Hiring AEs Without Self-Sourcing Pipeline Experience Is a Non-Negotiable Risk
“Pipeline generation. Hiring AEs that have not built their own pipeline, that one is non-negotiable, because if they say they will, if they say they want to they just don't know how hard it is, or they don't remember, maybe they did it as SDRs a long, long time…”
Carlos Delatorre Has Fired Sales Reps During First-Month Bootcamp
“We've parted ways with people at bootcamp. It was clear in their first month that, you know, we'd made a mistake and, you know, we apologize for that because we hired them. But why wait nine months and waste their time and waste our time and opportunity costs?”
Carlos Delatorre: Salespeople Do Not Sell; Buyers Buy
“I don't believe salespeople sell. Buyers buy. All salespeople can do is create an environment that is conducive to that purchase decision.”
High Sales Performance Is Mostly Learned, Not Innate Charisma
“I think it absolutely can be learned. And I think when people say that someone is born a sales, a salesperson, usually what they're referring to is charisma and a big personality. And I don't know that those things are necessarily what makes a great salesperso…”