The SaaS Grid Story: Why This VC-Turned-Founder Prioritized Founder-Led Sales
The conventional wisdom suggests founders should hire salespeople early. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Ethan Ruby revealed why he chose to personally lead SaaS Grid’s sales efforts through their crucial early stages, offering valuable insights for founders wrestling with this decision.
The Power of Direct Customer Engagement
Despite his background as a VC and experience analyzing thousands of SaaS companies, Ethan discovered the irreplaceable value of founder-led sales: “Right now it’s really all about sales. And so we have a lot of companies coming to us and looking for help, basically saying like, hey, my company’s starting to take off. I have all this data spread across HubSpot, stripe, salesforce, QuickBooks, whatever platform they use.”
This direct engagement proved crucial for understanding customer needs and validating their approach to solving them.
Learning Through Sales Conversations
The hands-on sales experience revealed nuanced differences in how various customers approached their product. As Ethan explains, “We have two very different Personas. I mean, when I’m talking to seed to sometimes series a companies, I’m normally interfacing with another Founder who knows their business intimately, has a pulse on the kind of investor asks and the fundraising needs of the company.”
This insight helped shape both their product development and go-to-market strategy.
Building a Sales Process
Four months into their paid product launch, SaaS Grid has signed dozens of customers with an average contract value approaching $10,000. This success has created the foundation for their next phase of growth.
As Ethan notes, “I have only been selling SaaS Grid as a paid product for about four months. But because we sell to startups, we have relatively low ACVs and high velocity. And so we have dozens of paying customers on the platform. And I do feel like I’ve got enough reps that I’ve got to develop a decent system and understanding of what our sales process looks like.”
Planning the Transition
The transition away from founder-led sales is a critical inflection point. Ethan acknowledges the challenge: “This is something where having been an investor is very top of mind. Cause frankly, when I, you know, working with founders as a VC, this is the thing we talked about all the time, like, hey, is hard moving from Founder led sales to running a sales team?”
Their approach focuses on methodical expansion: “We’re just now bringing on our first full time account executive, and so that’s going to be really exciting as I transition out of being the only frontline salesperson.”
Key Considerations for the Transition
The move to a dedicated sales team requires careful planning. As Ethan describes, “It’s at least half baked enough to start to turn it over to someone with some real sales skills to get going there when it comes to.”
This transition involves:
- Documenting the sales process developed through founder-led efforts
- Hiring salespeople who understand both the product and customer personas
- Maintaining the high-touch approach that’s driven early success
Looking Ahead
SaaS Grid’s growth ambitions are clear: “We basically want to ten x ARR this year, which is a lofty goal but I think is achievable based on the demand that we’re seeing.” This growth will require “ending the year at least a three person sales team to basically hit our ARR goals.”
The lesson for founders? While conventional wisdom often pushes for early sales hires, there’s significant value in leading sales efforts personally through the early stages. The insights gained from direct customer interaction can shape product development, refine positioning, and build a stronger foundation for scaling the sales organization.
As SaaS Grid’s experience shows, founder-led sales isn’t just about closing deals – it’s about building deep market understanding that can inform every aspect of the business.