Meka Asonye
Meka Asonye is a partner at First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture firm based in San Francisco. Before moving into venture, he was VP of Sales and Services at Mixpanel, where he ran a global revenue team of more than 100 people. Earlier, he spent four years at Stripe as it grew from about 250 to 2,000 people, heading its startup and SMB business, including launching outbound sales and building a customer success function. He writes a First Round Review series on early-stage go-to-market, covering founder-led sales, the first sales hire, and finding an ideal customer profile. He holds a BA in economics and finance from Princeton and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
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The First Sales Hire: Four Signals a Technical Founder Is Ready
Hiring the first salesperson too early is more common than hiring too late. Four signals that the hand-off from founder-led selling is ready, and why a premature hire makes the real problem harder to see.