Ouss‎

husband, 2x father, 4x founding sales leader x disruptive tech startups

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

In the early days, the playbook doesn’t exist. You build it, test it, refine it, and repeat the process until something becomes scalable.

That’s one of the hardest, yet most rewarding, parts of building a company.

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Early-stage GTM is less about selling, more about building.

When you’re one of the first GTM hires, your job exists in two worlds.

🧵🧵🧵

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Because you’re closest to customers, every conversation matters.

The objections you hear shape messaging.
The feature requests influence the roadmap.
The wins validate positioning.
The losses expose what still needs to change.

You’re writing the GTM strategy while executing it.

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Selling AI b2b today is a no-brainer.

Top down mandate - CEOs want it, but pressure is on departments to figure out where, how, and why it fits in

Your only job is to create a strong enough POV and bring it to market

You crush that and the sale begins to take care of itself

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Enterprise sales @ startups demands more from you than big company sales roles

But upside is 10X in $$, experience, and reputation

Most of all - you become indispensable

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Enterprise sales @ a startup is a different ball game.

Don't do it if you're afraid to challenge your CEO/leadership and the market/your prospects.

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Closing the deals is the first challenge, but that's when things start.

Your job after that is to continue being QB and making sure your ops/product teams can support the client.

This is where you win/lose the data, case studies, references for future deals

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

@jjen_abel What do they consider SMB/MM at that point? 🙄

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Noise vs signal

The difference between being busy and being productive

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Building a fat pipeline in enterprise sales is easy:

- be at every event that your prospects attend
- educate the market and challenge competition to show up
- no pitching, just share insights
- be genuine when you shake hands with new people

Most sales people suck at this

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

@TheMoeHayek Credit card startups lose money on just about every customer. Scaling originations/new customers looks great on paper but servicing costs and bad loans ruins them when the monetization is weak

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

You should have strong opinions, but also an open mind.

If you're easily swayed, you lack conviction. And a backbone.

If you're too stubborn, you usually learn once it's too late.

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Turn skeptics into fans by relating to them.

Storytelling goes a long way, especially when someone in their own shoes shares it.

In enterprise - and especially in AI right now - proof points beat pitch decks every time.

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

Best thing we did in a recent competitive sales meeting: brought in an operator to tell the story.

We had a deck. We had data.

But the valuable asset was having person who actually made the shift from traditional/legacy → AI-first and could say “here’s what it looked like.”

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

@jjen_abel That's how you play the game for sure. I'm thinking more about which games the first sales hire wants to play (ie. build like a co-founder instead of just being a killer AE)

Different lens.

[Ouss‎ @ouss_v1]

@jjen_abel First sales hire - from my experience - requires high level of ownership and building from the ground up.

Got a better word for it?