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Hiring your a salesperson is one of the most consequential decisions you will make as an EdTech founder. Hire too early and you burn cash. Hire the wrong profile and you conclude that “sales does not work for us”, when in reality the setup was flawed.
This is not about finding a “great salesperson” in general. It is about finding the right salesperson for your stage, product, and buyer.
Most early EdTech companies do not need a classic closer on day one.
Ask yourself:
If the answer is yes, your first hire is likely a commercial generalist, not a big ticket enterprise seller. Someone comfortable with messy processes, founder-led sales, and feedback loops.
Titles matter less than remit, but clarity still helps. Different sales roles solve different problems, and not all of them make sense at the start.
An SDR focuses on opening conversations. Their role is usually outbound heavy.
Typical responsibilities include:
This role only works well when:
Hiring an SDR too early often fails because there is not yet a repeatable message to test at scale.
A business development manager often sits between outbound and closing.
They usually:
This can be a strong first hire for EdTech founders because the role allows for learning, relationship building, and feedback gathering without the pressure of enterprise level closing.
An account executive is typically responsible for taking deals from discovery through to close.
They are best suited when:
In education, AEs need to be patient, consultative, and comfortable with long cycles. Hiring an AE too early can lead to frustration on both sides if there is not enough deal flow or clarity.
A sales manager focuses on people rather than pipeline.
They:
This role only makes sense once you have more than one salesperson. Hiring a manager before you have a team often adds cost without leverage.
These roles are senior individual contributors with leadership responsibility.
They typically:
For EdTech companies with early traction, a head of sales can work if they are hands on and comfortable operating without structure.
A VP of Sales is a scale role.
They are responsible for:
Most early stage EdTech companies are not ready for this role. Hiring a VP too early often results in misalignment and unrealistic expectations.
You may see titles like founding SDR or founding account executive. These are not just marketing labels.
A founding sales hire is expected to:
This is very different from joining an established sales team. Founding roles require curiosity, resilience, and strong collaboration with founders.
A salesperson who has only worked in mature organisations may struggle in a founding role, even if they performed well elsewhere.
Selling into education is not like selling generic SaaS.
Strong early EdTech sales hires understand:
A candidate with education or EdTech exposure will ramp faster, make fewer mistakes, and protect your reputation in the market.
Early hires should be judged less on who they sold for, and more on:
Be cautious of candidates who only thrive in environments with inbound leads, mature enablement, and brand recognition. Early EdTech sales is closer to market discovery than deal execution.
Your first salesperson will sit at the intersection of:
Look for someone who:
If they only talk about targets and commissions, that is a red flag at this stage.
Many early founders overpromise commission upside before revenue is predictable.
A healthier approach:
Your first sales hire is building the foundations, not just closing deals.
Your second hire should not be a copy of the first.
By the time you hire number two, you should have:
This is when you can start to specialise, for example:
If your first hire is still firefighting basic setup, it may be too early for number two.
Early sales hires sit very close to the founder. They represent the company in the market before the brand is established. That means values alignment is not a nice to have.
Founders should be asking themselves:
A strong EdTech salesperson is not only selling a product. They are selling trust. If their values clash with the founder’s or the company culture, that friction will show up quickly in conversations with schools, universities, and partners.
Hiring purely on what is written on paper often misses this.
Strong interview questions include:
The best candidates will talk about listening, testing, and learning. Not scripts and shortcuts.
For first and second sales hires, a bloated interview process usually adds noise rather than clarity. A simple, well structured process works best.
A strong structure looks like this:
Stage one: founder conversation
Focus on motivation, values, and understanding of the education space. This is where you learn who the person is and why they want this role at this stage.
Stage two: practical conversation
Explore how they think, not how they perform. Ask how they would approach your buyer, handle long sales cycles, or prioritise learning in the first 90 days.
Stage three: mutual alignment check
This can be a follow up conversation or informal meeting. Use it to sense collaboration style and expectations on both sides.
Three stages are usually enough. More often signals uncertainty rather than rigour.
References should not be an afterthought, but they also should not come too early.
Best practice is to ask for references after stage two, once you are confident about role fit and values alignment. Use references to validate patterns you have already observed, not to discover surprises.
Ask referees about:
Some questions add very little value and risk introducing bias.
Avoid asking directly about:
Instead, anchor questions in behaviour and scenarios. Focus on how the person thinks, learns, and adapts.
A common failure point is hiring a salesperson into an environment that is not ready.
Before hiring, founders should be honest about:
Salespeople often fail because they are set up to fail. Scrutinising your own readiness is part of responsible hiring.
Early EdTech sales is slow, relational, and iterative. If expectations are shaped by generic SaaS benchmarks, disappointment is almost guaranteed.
Founders need to be clear about:
Clarity protects both sides.
Hiring your first salesperson is not about finding someone to take sales off your plate. It is about finding someone who can grow with you, represent your values, and help shape how your company shows up in the education sector.
At RecruitHer, we support EdTech founders, including ethnically diverse founders, to build go to market teams that align with their mission, values, and growth stage.
If you would like support with hiring your sales folks, you can book a free consultation and talk it through.
