First-hire pack: job description, 5-step interview, scorecard rubric, where to source candidates and early reject criteria.
You've been telling people for six weeks that you're hiring your first eng (or AE, or PM, or designer). The JD on Notion is two bullet points and the word 'rockstar'. You posted it once on X and got 14 applicants, 12 of whom haven't read your product page. The problem isn't the market, it's that you haven't written the brief. This tool generates the full hiring pack a real founder needs for their first hire: a JD that screens correctly (people self-select out), a 5-step interview process designed to reject fast, a scorecard rubric so you stop hiring on vibes alone, and a source list of where this specific hire actually hangs out. You give it the role, why now, who you're competing with for talent, comp band, and equity range. You get something you can post tomorrow and run all the way to offer.
Brief used: “Hiring first AE. We're a 3-person B2B SaaS (AI meeting notes for sales teams), $22k MRR, mostly founder-led sales so far. Need someone who can run discovery calls and close $1.2k ACV deals with sales managers at 50-500 person SaaS companies. Comp band $90-120k base + similar variable, 0.4-0.8% equity. Competing for talent against early-stage YC SaaS companies. Want someone who's been an SDR-turned-AE at a real startup, not a senior AE from a big company.”
## Job Description: Founding Account Executive ### The mission Build and own the sales motion for our AI meeting notes product. You will personally close the first 100 customers and design the playbook the next 5 reps will run. ### What you'll actually do - Take all inbound demos (currently ~12/week) and run discovery → close, $1.2k ACV cycle, 14-day average. - Run targeted outbound into VP Sales / Sales Manager personas at 50-500 person SaaS companies. - Iterate on the pitch, the demo, and the pricing conversation weekly with the founders. - Document the playbook so we can hire AE #2 in 9 months. ### What we're looking for - 2-4 years closing experience, with at least 1 year as an AE (not just SDR). - You've sold a sub-$5k ACV product before. Velocity, not enterprise. - You write follow-ups that read like a human wrote them. - You're comfortable being the only seller for the next 9 months. ### What we're explicitly not - Senior AE from a Series C+ company looking for a 'mission'. Velocity sales muscle atrophies fast. - Anyone who needs an SDR feeding them leads. You'll generate half the pipeline yourself. - A 'sales leader' looking to manage. Nobody to manage. ### Comp & equity $95-115k base + 1:1 variable (OTE $190-230k). 0.4-0.7% equity, 4-year vest, 1-year cliff. Health, $1k learning budget, remote. ## 5-Step Interview Process 1. **Recruiter screen** (founder, 25 min): goal: confirm bands fit, motivation is real, not 'looking everywhere'. 2. **Founder chat** (45 min): goal: judge sales instinct via the role-play below. 3. **Sales role-play + pitch-back** (60 min, paid $200): goal: see them run discovery on our actual product. 4. **Deep-dive panel** (founder + design partner customer, 60 min). Goal: the customer's gut read. 5. **References** (3, you-driven not them-driven): goal: hear 'closed the most' or 'closed the least' in their pod. ## Scorecard (1-5 per dimension) | Dimension | What 5/5 looks like | |---|---| | **Discovery instinct** | Asks 2 layers of 'why' before pitching. Names the buyer's quota pain unprompted. | | **Velocity muscle** | Has closed 30+ sub-$5k deals. Talks about pipeline coverage, not 'relationships'. | | **Self-direction** | Has worked in a 1-2 seller team. Built their own outbound sequences. | | **Coachability** | Asks for feedback in the interview. References say 'iterated fast on rejections'. | ### Questions per dimension (3 each, abbreviated) - Discovery: 'Walk me through the last deal you lost. At what moment did you know it was lost?' / 'How do you open a cold demo when the prospect already half-knows the product?' / 'What's a question you ask every prospect that most reps don't?' - Velocity: 'What was your average deal cycle at $X company?' / 'How many active deals did you carry at peak?' / 'When the pipeline thinned, what did you do that week?' - Self-direction: 'Describe a sequence you wrote that worked. What was the open-to-meeting %?' / 'Last week with no manager, what did you ship?' / 'When did you last invent a sales motion?' - Coachability: 'What feedback have you gotten twice from different managers?' / 'What's a hard skill you got measurably better at in 12 months?' / 'What part of your pitch is still bad?' ## Reject-fast criteria 1. Talks about 'enterprise process' or 'territory carving' in the founder chat: wrong altitude. 2. Can't name a specific deal they lost in detail: has been coasting. 3. Needs an SDR or marketing-qualified pipeline to function: won't survive month 1. ## Source list - **Pavilion** (Sales Excellence channel: search 'looking for next role' posts from members tagged AE) - **RevGenius Slack**: #seeking-opportunities is active - **X follow trees**: start at @JustinMichael, @KDinTech, anyone who posts 'closed' threads weekly - **AEs from sales-tech companies** on LinkedIn, searched by title and tenure - **YC W23/W24 alumni Slack**: companies that downsized GTM - **The Bridge Group** community: velocity sellers congregate there
Static example. Your own run calls Claude live with your brief.
Founders making their first 5 hires, technical founders hiring their first non-engineer, ops-light teams that don't have a recruiter, anyone whose JD currently says 'wear many hats' unironically. Not for: companies with an in-house TA team and a working ATS, or anyone hiring at scale (10+ of the same role).
A full hiring pack: (1) job description: mission for the role, what you'll actually do day-to-day, what we're looking for, what we're explicitly not (filters out 60% of bad fits), comp + equity range, benefits if any, (2) 5-step interview process (recruiter screen, founder chat, work sample or paid trial, deep-dive panel, references) with the goal of each stage written down, (3) scorecard across 4 dimensions with a 1-5 rubric per dimension (no more 'I liked them'), (4) 3 interview questions per dimension with what a 5/5 answer sounds like, (5) reject-fast criteria: the 3 things that should kill a candidate in the first 30 minutes, (6) source list: Slack groups, communities, X follow trees, ex-employee networks where this hire is reachable.
You're hiring your first eng and the only frame you have is 'someone like me but works for less'. Get a JD that filters correctly and an interview that doesn't end with you hiring your friend's friend.
You're hiring the first non-founder seller. Get a scorecard that separates 'good at closing' from 'good at storytelling' and a 5-step process that tests both.
You don't know what good looks like in a role you've never done. Get a rubric that captures the 4 things that matter and a question bank that surfaces them.
The last hire didn't work and you're not sure if it was them or the process. Get a clean re-do: sharper JD, tighter scorecard, faster rejection criteria.
Yes. Describe the role (e.g. 'first backend eng, Postgres + Node, B2B SaaS') and the tool adapts the scorecard dimensions (technical depth, ambiguity tolerance, system design judgment, ship velocity) and the question bank to match.
Edit it into your own voice before posting: check the company details, the compensation and every claim about the role. The structure and the 'what we're not' section matter most, because they let candidates rule themselves out.
For founding AE roles, yes. Free 'sample work' filters out exactly the people you want (the good ones are employed and won't do free work). $150-300 is the going rate and signals you respect their time.
The tool will tune comp framing to your band and surface non-cash levers (equity uplift, ownership of the function, founder access). Be honest in the input: an inflated comp range wastes everyone's time.
Templates give you a JD. This gives you the JD + interview process + scorecard + reject-fast filters + sourcing all wired to each other. The dimensions in the JD show up as scorecard rows. That's where most first-time hiring breaks.