Founding Account Executive

tl;dr: we’re hiring our first Sales role. You will work with our CEO/co-founder to grow Agave from $Xm ARR to $XXm ARR+. Ideally, you are a hungry, scrappy, and energetic AE, pumped to bet on a career-defining role at a fast-growing, early-stage startup. Min. 2+ YoE closing deals in a quota-carrying role at a b2b SaaS company, ideally with experience selling into construction. More details here (link).

Why are we hiring this role?

• We’ve made a ton of progress through founder-led sales (2XX+ customers, $Xm ARR, cash-flow positive for 1yr+). Now, we’re seeking the right person to help us grow even faster.
• You’ll own the day to day execution of our full sales cycle while working with our CEO/co-founder on all aspects of revenue - from defining ICPs and GTM strategy, to pricing details and contract terms. You’ll be the expert on our customers’ needs - our CTO and CPO will ask for your input when planning sprints and new features.
• We expect you to ramp fast since you’re stepping-into a sales motion that’s working well. You’ll have an existing pipeline, refined collateral, meeting templates, a tidy CRM, and SMEs to run demos and answer domain-specific nuances. You’ll have strong inbound and referrals, which you’ll continue to convert at a high rate. You’ll build our outbound motion as we expand our product and enter new segments in construction.
• To do all of this, you will need to be unique. While typical AEs execute existing playbooks, you will need to write a better one. You are not a coin-operated salesperson looking for a 9-to-5. You are a hungry, scrappy, and energetic AE, pumped to bet on a career-defining role at a fast-growing, early-stage startup. Your potential for impact will extend far beyond the ARR you close.

Compensation

• We want AEs eager to bet on themselves and the company, motivated by the upside in the role.
• Compensation shown consists of base + commission (OTE), with meaningful equity.
• Nothing makes our founders happier than writing fat commission checks for well-qualified customers we retain. We ring gongs for each deal.

Why join us?

• Early-stage, yet de-risked: we are a rare combo of being early stage (high upside) but lower risk (2XX+ paying customers, $Xm+ recurring revenue, cash-flow positive for over a year, hockey-stick growth). You get the benefits of an early stage startup without the risk you’ll have at almost any other startup. You’ll have a ton of impact, work directly with our customers, and get to work on interesting technical challenges you won’t see at bigger companies. Although we’re early stage, we’ve eliminated key strategic risks you’ll face at other startups. Like an unproven product, lack of market validation, lack of revenue, over-reliance on VC funding, co-founder disputes. We’re all young and hungry. Our team is fully in-person, tenacious, and committed - most of us moved to SF from far away (Canada, SoCal, Texas, Virginia) specifically to build Agave from the ground up.
• Team is technical, diverse, young: you'll work with a formidable founding team that's experienced, intense, and ambitious. We've worked together for 10 years, first at a startup that Amazon acquired, then at Amazon, and now at Agave. You'll learn a ton while having outsized ownership. You’ll have a front-row seat to the good and bad of building a company from the ground up. We’re also technical - all but 1 of our team (our AE!) have either majored in CS, worked as full-time devs, and/or worked in technical roles at startups and larger tech companies for 5+ years before moving into business roles at Agave.
• Huge opportunity without direct competition: startups are incredibly hard, so you want to join one that has a unique advantage. You don’t want to spend years of your life on a company in a saturated market with tons of competition. We’re seizing an opportunity that’s massive (Construction is the world’s third-largest industry) but also overlooked by most people in startup land. Most who can solve this problem aren’t aware it exists or are too distracted by tech trends (blockchain, metaverse, LLMs, etc.) to notice. These talented folks get coaxed into building products that seem cool early on, but don’t solve durable problems or aren’t differentiated enough against their many competitors to be sustainable (e.g. lots of AI products), so they end-up not going anywhere or stagnating without a clear plan to grow profitably. As a result, we have a multi-year head start against potential competitors, increasing our odds of success significantly. We’re also backed by world-class investors (Accel, YC) and Construction insiders (Procore and Autodesk executives, founders of the largest construction tech companies like PlanGrid).

Responsibilities

• Your core role is to help construction general/trade contractors automate work through software integration, saving time and grow their company more profitably. To do this, you will own our end-to-end sales process, including:
  • Lead gen + prospecting: research potential customers, generate leads, and build a consistent outbound sales pipeline. Attend industry events and develop connections to drive future sales growth.
  • Outreach + engagement: contact leads via email, cold calls, job-site visits, conferences, and more. Manage inbound and referral leads shared by external partners who co-sell with us.
  • Qualification + closing: run discovery calls, demos (with our technical SME experts), and follow-ups to qualify close new customers. Build proposals and RoI cases that convince qualified prospects to buy Agave. Negotiate contract terms when needed.
  • Process improvement: improve our internal sales processes (slides, call scripts, meeting templates, contract terms, CRM workflows, metrics, dashboards, etc.). Run weekly “Sales Review” meetings company-wide to review deals and answer questions.
  • Cross-team work: work with Customer Success, Engineering, and Product to consistently delight customers. Work with our co-founding team on all things sales and revenue related.
• This is a unique role with potential to expand into a Sales leadership position quickly as we grow, reporting directly into the CEO.

Requirements

• Hard requirements:
  • 2+ years of sales experience: 2+ YoE closing deals in a quota-carrying role at a b2b SaaS company. You understand the collaboration, process, and tenacity required to close 5-6 figure b2B SaaS contracts.
  • Prior sales success: strong record evidenced by quota attainment, customer retention, and manager feedback.
  • In-person: pumped to work in-person in SF 5 days per week with our team.
• Soft requirements:
  • Hands-on: you have been a successful IC and want to continue being one. You must love operating in the messy weeds of finding prospects and closing them. You do not want to be an armchair expert.
  • Owner mindset: you are self-directed and able to work with minimal supervision. We can trust you to disqualify poor-fit customers instead of signing them. Where there’s a gap, you fill it without asking.
  • Clear + persuasive communication: you love writing crisp follow-up emails to customers and articulating compelling counterpoints to their hesitations.
  • Strong EQ: you know when to listen and when to sell. You are attuned to social signals, especially on Zoom.
  • Uncanny ability to deliver results: you get the job done consistently, doing any task needed to deliver on time. You're gritty and not easily discouraged.
  • Product curiosity: you are curious about how our product works, and act to understand it in more detail than is typical for a salesperson.
• Nice to have:
  • Experience selling software into the construction industry.
  • Experience at a startup, ideally Series B/C or earlier.
  • Familiarity with accounting concepts and nuances.

Benefits

• Healthcare: we cover 90% of your healthcare costs with several plan options.
• 401k: we match 100% of your contributions, up to 4% of annual salary.
• Relocation: sizable relocation bonus for folks currently located outside of the Bay Area.
• Gym: on-site gym with Peloton, squat rack, Tempo, Yoga setup, and more.
• Visa: we sponsor Visas (H1B, TN, etc.) for candidates who are a good fit!

In-person

• We've built Agave in-person since day 1, and will maintain an in-person culture in San Francisco going forward. We form tighter bonds, build a stronger culture, and move faster since we're all working from one location.
• Our office is just west of Twin Peaks, 1 block from a bus stop, 10min walk from a BART station, and a 5min drive off the 101 and 280. Our entire team commutes here every day. We believe building in-person is a huge strategic advantage, and we hope you’ll join us.

At each stage, we decide and update you within 24hrs:

1. Intro Screen (15min.) [Virtual]: informal chat for you to learn more about the role. We'll ask for details on your past roles and what you're looking for next. We want to know that you meet our basic requirements and can speak about your work clearly. You’re welcome to ask lots of questions about whether working at Agave makes sense for you.
2. Writing Exercise (30min.) [Virtual]: quick exercise where you draft a mock outbound sequence to maximize conversion rate to an intro Zoom call. We’ll ask you to share as much detail as possible about your approach and tools. Our goal is to confirm your written communication skills.
3. Experience Screen (45min.) [Virtual]: deeper dive into your sales experience with another Agave co-founder. We'll ask for details on your sales history and dig into 1-2 of your most challenging deals/sales projects to learn more about your background. You’ll have 5-10min at the end to ask us any questions you’d like.
4. Mock Sales Call (30min.) [Virtual]: mock sales call where an Agave co-founder plays a prospect, and you run a discovery call and drive next steps. We provide detailed directions in a Google doc and you spend ~3 hours preparing for the call.
5. On-site (60min. x 5 people) [In-Person in SF, we pay for travel]: you'll interview with each co-founder and our lead dev. This will be a deeper dive into your experience, sales fluency, and overall fit. Each interview is 1hr: 45min for our questions and 15min for yours.