All of our Sales articles

Sales

0-$5M: When, Who, and How to Make Your First Sales Hire

Expert advice from Dropbox, Figma and Stripe on timing your first sales hire, finding the right candidate profile and creating effective onboarding to successfully transition from founder-led sales to a scalable revenue team.

Sales

0-$5M: How to Nail Founder-Led Sales

First Round partner Meka Asonye sits down with founders and first sales hires to unpack 6 specific tactics for learning to embrace founder-led sales instead of avoiding it. This is the first installment in our “0-$5M” series.

Product

EvolutionIQ Just Got Acquired for $730M — Here's Their Playbook For Building an Enduring AI Business

We sat down with the founding team for the inside story of one of the first major vertical AI exits.

Starting Up

The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation

How do you create a go-to-market machine that’s able to turbocharge (and then sustain) revenue growth? Clay co-founder Varun Anand shares the biggest lessons from the company's success, with growth advice for both product-led and sales-led startups.

Sales

21 Ways To Shore Up Your Customer Success Org

When operating in a downturn, founders have to make the most out of what they have in order to grow, including their existing customer relationships. This often means shining a spotlight on customer success orgs. To help, we spoke to over a dozen customer success experts for their best advice, pract

Sales

The Most Common Go-to-Market Questions This Expert Gets from Early Founders

Struggling to figure out your startup's early go-to-market? First Round's VP of GTM Emery Rosansky shares her expert advice and tactical templates for narrowing down your ICP, running a successful sales call, and accurate forecasting.

Sales

The Startup’s Guide to Customer Advocacy: How to Get Closer to Your Champions

Customer advocacy is more than just case studies. Kalina Bryant (formerly of Asana, Talkdesk and Marketo) shares tactical advice for turning customers into advocates, with tailored pointers for startups on a budget.

Sales

Between Sales and Product: Building Out Self-Serve and Customer Experience at Notion & Dropbox

Kate Taylor spent 8 years at Dropbox leading their SMB revenue and scaled sales operation) and is now the Head of Customer Experience at Notion.

Sales

This GTM-Leader-Turned-Investor Crowdsources Early Lessons From Stripe, Figma & More

As he makes the transition from operator to investor, Meka Asonye looks back on his career as a sales leader at Stripe and Mixpanel to offer tactical takeaways and go-to-market lessons — crowdsourcing additional advice from the top revenue leaders in his network.

Product

Unpacking 5 of Atlassian’s Most Unconventional Company-Building Moves

After a 12-year run at Atlassian, Jay Simons digs into how the company's story runs contrary to conventional startup wisdom, unpacking their product-led growth flywheel, reliance on channel partners, strategy for launching new products, and slow-burn enterprise strategy.

Sales

Step Up Your Sales Coaching Game — Dig Into The Numbers to Help Your Reps Level Up

Sales managers have an unprecedented opportunity to lean into the numbers and level up as coaches — but in Karen Rhorer's experience, most are leaving this potential untapped.

Sales

Mastering the Art of the Outcome: How Guru Turned Customer Success Into a Company Cornerstone

At Guru, customer success is at the center of every aspect of company-building, from product design to sales strategy. Co-founder and CEO Rick Nucci shows how a relentless dedication to outcomes gives startups a competitive edge.