Hiring a Founding AE Next

In this episode of Mostly Growth, Kyle Poyar and CJ Gustafson run a fantasy startup draft—Super Bowl–style. If you were founding a company today, who would you hire first? Marketing generalist, founding BDR, product marketing, RevOps, customer success, or a first business hire? Kyle and CJ draft five non-technical roles each, debate tradeoffs, and explain how early hiring choices shape growth, efficiency, and execution. Then it’s on you to vote on the winning roster—with real (and painful) stakes for the loser.

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SPONSORS:

RightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform built for modern pricing models like usage-based pricing, bundles, and mid-cycle upgrades. RightRev lets companies scale monetization without slowing down close or compliance. For RevRec that keeps growth moving, visit https://www.rightrev.com

Tropic is an intelligent spend management solution that consolidates your spend data and processes into one unified offering, enabling insights and decisive action. From spotting hidden optimization opportunities to automating painful procurement workflows and giving you the best market data to turn vendor negotiations in your favor, Tropic combines smart insights with real human expertise to keep you ahead of the curve. Visit https://www.tropicapp.io/mostlymetrics to learn how.

HockeyStack is an AI platform for modern go-to-market teams that unifies sales, marketing, and customer data into a single system of action. With AI agents that prospect accounts, support reps, improve forecasting, and automate what’s already working, HockeyStack helps teams move faster without guessing. Trusted by companies like RingCentral, Outreach, ActiveCampaign, and Fortune 100 teams—learn more at https://www.hockeystack.com

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LINKS: 

Mostly Metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com

CJ on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/

Growth Unhinged: https://www.growthunhinged.com/

Kyle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/

Slacker Stuff: https://www.slackerstuff.com/

Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slackerstuff/

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RELATED EPISODES:

When the marketing math doesn’t math | with Emily Kramer

https://youtu.be/sSuoV_YSrlw

The Psychology Behind Why Buyers Don’t Change | DemandJen

https://youtu.be/h7ZgPkgZ5oE

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Fantasy Punishments and Cold Open  

00:02:35 Show Intro and Draft Stakes  

00:03:37 Framing the Fantasy Startup Draft  

00:05:41 Round One

00:10:13 Sponsors — RightRev | Tropic | HockeyStack  

00:13:54 Round Two

00:18:00 Round Three

00:21:10 Round Four

00:24:12 Round Five

00:27:18 Why This Pick Didn’t Make the Draft  

00:28:12 Pricing in the Real World: Super Bowl Ads  

00:30:51 Bonuses in the Real World: NFL Playoff Incentives  

00:32:59 Voting, Final Thoughts, and Wrap-Up

#MostlyGrowthPodcast #StartupDraft #GoToMarket #EarlyStageStartups #RevenueOps