I am the first AE and my founder still runs half the deals. How do we split it?
Split by stage, not by account, at least at first. The founder stays on the parts only they can do, the vision framing, the pricing exception, the reference call with another founder, and you own everything before and after. Then move one stage at a time from them to you, and only after you have won two deals in that stage without them. Write down which deals the founder is allowed to be pulled into, because otherwise every hard deal escalates and you never build the muscle. And put it in your comp: if the founder closes it, you still get paid, or you will quietly stop bringing them in.
Go deeper
3 resources, 3 link-checked.
📄 Article
✓ Link checkedFreeIntermediate
Stripe's Chief Business Officer on building a written sales operating model (leads, conversion, deal size, win rate, cycle) so you can diagnose whether a miss is the rep or the model. The missing step in most handoffs.
Names the two ways founders get the timing wrong, scaling too early and scaling too late, and walks the progression from founder selling to pods to a real team. Useful precisely when you are deciding whether it is time.
Two hours covering when to hire the first rep, what to look for, when to bring in a VP of Sales, and how comp and quotas should be set, all in one place. If you only watch one thing on sales hiring, watch this.
