Don't outsource these core skills before reaching $1.5M-$2M ARR. If your founding team has a gap, the best path is to learn the missing skill or intentionally limit your business scope, not to hire an agency or junior employee.
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Resist hiring quickly after finding traction. Instead, 'hire painfully slowly' and assemble an initial 'MVP Crew' — a small, self-sufficient team with all skills needed to build, market, and sell the product end-to-end. This establishes a core DNA of speed and execution before scaling.
At the $1-10M ARR stage, avoid junior reps or VPs from large companies. The ideal first hire can "cosplay a founder"—they sell the vision, craft creative deals, and build trust without a playbook. Consider former founders or deep product experts, even with no formal sales experience.
While founder-led sales are critical, StackAI believes they waited too long to hire their first salesperson. Bringing in help earlier, around $500K ARR, would have accelerated their ability to test and refine their go-to-market strategy much faster.
Founders are "unicorns" with unique skill sets impossible to hire for in a single person. To scale and remove yourself as a bottleneck, break your responsibilities into their component parts (e.g., sales, marketing, product) and hire specialists for each, assembling a team that approximates your output, even at a lower margin.
If your team lacks development expertise, don't hire an agency to build a complex SaaS. Instead, build a simpler product that aligns with your skills, such as a no-code app or a small utility. This approach avoids unmanageable technical debt and agency dependency.
While development is a core skill, it sits lower on the hierarchy than sales, marketing, and product. Companies can bootstrap to millions in ARR with strong go-to-market execution and fix technical debt later, but the reverse is rarely true.