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Chellappa: Founders should lead sales and close the first 10 accounts

Sri Chellappa · $6m ARR CEO Shares When to Hire First AE, CSM, and VP · Jul 2, 2024 · at 11:36

This episode carries Sri Chellappa's own address, with nobody on the show putting questions to them. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.

Sri Chellappa emphasizes the necessity of founder-led sales during the first two years of a B2B SaaS startup.

0:00 / 0:34exact quote · 34.5s
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“I'm a firm believer that this, that the founder should be doing sales, and doing some other marketing for the first two years. They should be the one closing the first 10 accounts. If you're not doing the, I closed the first 40 accounts, because we were bootstrapped and it was, you know, we had a long run, but I do believe if you, if your founder is not selling, and at least one of the two founders, or one of the three founders, depending on how many founders you have, then you're not set up to succeed, because the founder has to intimately understand the market, understand the customer, the buying patterns, the ICP, all of those things, extremely important.”

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