How the best do it

What does a genuinely elite onboarding and ramp program look like, and what does it buy you?

The short answer

It looks like a school, not a buddy system. Cohorts rather than one-offs, a written curriculum split into market, product, process and tools, certification gates a rep has to pass before they touch a live account, and daily drilling where they pitch to peers and get scored. The best programs treat practice as more important than the live calls, because a rep who is learning on your prospects is burning them. What it buys is measurable: reps without structured onboarding take 25 to 40 percent longer to their first deal, and given a median tenure around two years, every month of ramp you cut is a month of productive selling you get back.

Go deeper, your way

4 hand-picked resources, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

The same ground, at another level

How hiring and ramping gtm people reads from a different seat.

When do I stop selling myself and hire my first salesperson? Not when you are tired of selling. When you can predict it. The honest test is whether you can write down who buys, what makes them buy now, the th... Breaking into GTM 5 resources → What should a new rep's first 90 days actually look like? The first 30 days are absorption: product, market, recorded calls, and shadowing you on live deals until they can pitch it back without notes. Days... Doing the work 5 resources → How many reps should I hire next quarter, and in what order? Do the arithmetic backwards from the number. Take next year's new ARR target, divide by realistic per rep yield, then divide again by the attainmen... Leading a GTM team 4 resources →

People also ask

When do I stop selling myself and hire my first salesperson? Not when you are tired of selling. When you can predict it. The honest test is whether you can write down who buys, what makes them buy now, the th... Breaking into GTM 5 resources → What does a good first sales hire actually look like, and what should I not fall for? You want someone who will do their own button clicking. The single most common mistake is overshooting seniority: hiring a person whose last three ... Breaking into GTM 5 resources → I have been offered the first sales hire job at a startup. What should I check before I say yes? Ask how many customers the founder closed personally and what the last five deals looked like. If the answer is under ten, you are the experiment, ... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → How do I interview a salesperson when I have never sold for a living? Stop trying to judge charisma and start judging evidence. Write a scorecard first: three or four outcomes you want in twelve months and the handful... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → What should a new rep's first 90 days actually look like? The first 30 days are absorption: product, market, recorded calls, and shadowing you on live deals until they can pitch it back without notes. Days... Doing the work 5 resources → 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 ... Doing the work 3 resources →

Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Co-founders, team & legal, our Starting Up track.

Do I actually need a co-founder, or can I go solo? You don't strictly need one, but the data says teams outlast solos: complementary skills, shared load, and someone to argue you out of bad calls al... 3 resources → How should co-founders split equity fairly? For most early teams, split close to equal, an even split signals you see each other as true partners, and long-term contribution rarely matches wh... 3 resources →
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