Jason M. Lemkin says don't hire a VP of Sales until you have at least two reps hitting quota consistently. VPs scale known processes, not find product-market fit. First prove your sales motion works: a script, reliable leads, reps who get your 10x feature.
You need two sales reps hitting quota, closing deals before you're ready to hire a manager for them. Almost all VPs of sales, their job is to take you from rep 3 to 300. To take something that's just starting to repeat, a script that's just starting to work, leads that are just starting to come in. If you're a startup, your product isn't very good, your software is not very good, and you have a competitor, but you have some 10x feature that is driving people to buy you something you're doing that does not exist in the marketplace. And the really good reps get insanely good at selling that. And the folks off the street that do VP sales often doesn't even understand the 10x feature. It's too subtle. So you need two reps that are hitting quota and then you hire VP sales. If you hire it before then, you're doing a Hail Mary. It ain't going to work. You're asking them to find product market fit to be the first rep to be the second rep, and scale it all at the same time. It's mission impossible to do all four at the same time.
