Book · 250 pages

The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

Mark Roberge Paid Intermediate

Roberge built HubSpot's sales org from zero using data instead of instinct, and this is his framework for hiring, training, and managing reps once founder-led sales ends. The hiring formula chapter is directly useful for writing a scorecard for your first sales hires.

  • Score candidates against traits that actually predicted success at your company, not a generic profile.
  • Structured onboarding gets a new rep to full productivity faster than shadow me and figure it out.
  • Data on where reps get stuck tells you more than gut feel about who to coach or let go.

The question it answers

  1. When do I know it's time to hire a salesperson instead of doing it myself?

Read with it

  1. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  2. Pete Koomen took Optimizely from zero to $100M+ ARR, and here he breaks the enterprise funnel down for exactly the person who... Y Combinator Startup School Video · ~35 min Enterprise Sales for Founders Pete Koomen
  3. Pete Kazanjy is blunt about defining a tight ICP from real signal (who actually buys and closes) rather than from who you wish... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 90 minutes Founder-led sales | Pete Kazanjy (Founding Sales, Atrium) Lenny Rachitsky (host), with Pete Kazanjy
  4. This is the book most modern cold outbound advice quietly borrows from, so reading the source is worth it. Its "Cold Calling... Amazon Book · ~208 pages Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler
  5. Jen Abel has coached over 300 early-stage founders through their first sales, so this is grounded in what actually happens when... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 1 hour 16 minutes The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (JJELLYFISH) Lenny Rachitsky with Jen Abel
  6. Blomfield (founder of Monzo and GoCarchless, now a YC partner) gives the concrete mechanics of closing that first B2B deal:... Y Combinator Startup Library Article · 25 min read The Sales Playbook for Founders Tom Blomfield
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