Let’s imagine an SaaS startup. At first, the founders do the selling; one of the cofounders leads the sales efforts personally. This is very early in the sales learning curve. They’re trying to learn how to sell, and even how to describe the product in the first place. They’re learning what their buyers need and what their environment looks like. They’re in an exploratory phase. Over time, they hire a few salespeople—often initially an outside salesperson and maybe an inside salesperson, depending on the business model and how expensive the product is.
