Interview with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund: How Founders Drive Sales and Growth at Startups
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Interview with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund: How Founders Drive Sales and Growth at Startups
The essence of sales is psychology.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsHost: Imran Khan, Co-founder of Alliance
Guest: Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
In the world of venture capital, Founders Fund is nothing short of legendary.
In 2002, Peter Thiel, known as the "godfather of Silicon Valley," sold PayPal—the company he co-founded—for $1.5 billion to eBay. In 2005, he established Founders Fund, primarily investing in consumer internet companies. Its investment portfolio includes iconic Silicon Valley names such as Facebook, SpaceX, Palantir, LinkedIn, and Spotify. Today, Founders Fund manages over $12 billion in assets.
In April 2024, Alliance, the largest accelerator in the crypto space, announced a strategic long-term investment from Founders Fund. The size of the investment was not disclosed. As part of the deal, Founders Fund will support Alliance’s portfolio companies.
As a “bonus” from this investment, Imran Khan, co-founder of Alliance, sat down with several partners and the marketing lead at Founders Fund—most of whom have direct startup experience—to discuss how founders can drive sales and growth, build crypto brands, and find the right co-founders. The conversation is packed with practical insights for entrepreneurs.
TechFlow has compiled and translated this dialogue series into Chinese for our readers.
Summary
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Sam’s background: Sam Blond has spent most of his career in tech sales. He started as a sales development representative at EchoSign and later held VP roles at multiple companies. He is now a partner at Founders Fund, focusing on B2B software investments.
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Sales & startups: Sam discusses why founders should lead sales in early-stage startups. He outlines three stages of startup sales and emphasizes that founders best understand their product and vision, making them the most effective initial salespeople. For new sales hires, having proven success patterns and existing customers is critical to building an effective strategy.
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Taking the first step: Sam advises founders to leverage their personal networks for initial sales. He encourages them to step outside their comfort zone, engage directly with customers, and refine strategies based on early feedback to achieve better product-market fit.
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Network-based selling: Sam explains how to use existing networks for sales, using a concentric circle model. He suggests starting with closest contacts and gradually expanding outward.
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Evaluating customers: After the first sales call, Sam recommends asking questions to assess a prospect's genuine interest and needs, helping determine whether to follow up and prioritize truly interested leads.
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Sales process: Sam highlights the importance of establishing a clear sales process. A defined process reduces uncertainty for founders and provides buyers with a clear path to purchase.
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Creating FOMO: Sam discusses using time-limited offers and exclusive deals to create urgency and boost product appeal.
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When to hire salespeople: Sam suggests hiring sales reps only after securing several paying customers who aren’t friends or family. He recommends hiring two reps instead of one to accelerate learning and strategy refinement.
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When to invest in marketing: Sam advises investing in marketing only after confirming product-market fit, using ads and branding to amplify reach.
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Large vs. small markets: For companies targeting smaller markets like crypto, Sam stresses the importance of precise positioning and focus. Using Brex as an example, he discusses attracting early users through specific product features and leveraging tight-knit industry networks to build brand awareness.
Main Highlights from the Conversation:
Sam’s Background
Imran: Could you briefly introduce your background?
Sam:
Sure. I grew up in Kansas City, so I’m from the Midwest. I went to the University of Missouri and moved to San Francisco in 2008. Since then, I’ve basically been in tech sales. I started as a sales development rep at a company called EchoSign, stayed there a little over five years, then became VP of Sales at Zenefits for about two and a half years. I served as Chief Commercial Officer at Brex for four and a half years. Now I’m a partner at Founders Fund, investing in B2B software companies.
Sales and Startups
Imran: I think startups go through three stages in sales. First, founder-led sales. Second, finding product-market fit and scaling. Third, reaching scale beyond $3 million in revenue. As a technically-minded founder, why do you believe founders should lead sales initially?
Sam:
I see two main reasons. Most tech startups initially acquire customers through founder-led efforts because from the company’s perspective, founders have the highest likelihood of closing new clients. No one understands the product, vision, target market, or intended audience better than the founders themselves. If the founder can’t acquire customers and generate revenue, someone with less insight certainly won’t be able to. From the company’s standpoint, founders are simply better at customer acquisition. From the salesperson’s perspective, you want to enter an environment where there’s already some customer base—success patterns you can replicate and proven methods that worked. You don’t want to come in as a blank canvas with nothing to reference. That doesn’t set you up for success. So from both angles—if you’re the company, you’re more likely to get customers; if you’re a sales rep, you’re more likely to succeed if the founder has done the groundwork.
Taking the First Step
Imran: But many founders are introverted—they focus on building great products and working with engineering teams. What advice do you have for founders who are afraid to take that first step?
Sam:
First, finding a way to make yourself comfortable is crucial. Every single company I’ve interacted with—now numbering in the hundreds, maybe even thousands—started the same way, including many of the most successful tech companies we know. Founders stepped out of their comfort zones, engaged with customers, and generated their first revenue.
Network-Based Selling
Imran: On your Twitter, you hosted a sales talk at Gary Tan’s home, where you discussed building communities and mentioned 'in-network sales' and what you did at Brex. Can you explain this concept? For those not in YC or Alliance, how should they think about building such a community?
Sam:
This ties back to what I just said—there are multiple things founders can do to make the process more comfortable and effective. You mentioned stepping out of your comfort zone and becoming a salesperson. I think of customer acquisition, whether for your initial customers or later ones, as a good analogy using concentric circles. You start with the innermost circle—your personal network. Take Brex as an example: if you’re a founder selling to other startup founders, and you’re launching the first corporate card for startups, you might pull a report from LinkedIn identifying which people in your network are startup founders with companies of a certain size, and start by reaching out to them.
Then, as you expand, you move to second-tier connections—people in the same industry but not directly in your network. You keep expanding that circle until you’ve covered your target market or achieved satisfactory market penetration. It’s important to remember this applies not just to sales, but also to business development, partnerships, and networking. It’s a holistic way to grow your business across multiple channels.
You’ll know your network is truly working when repeat customers return and refer others, or when your brand spreads organically through word-of-mouth. That’s when you can push boundaries and expand into new areas or verticals. Knowing when to push forward versus consolidate is key—it’s about balancing expansion with stability, which is essential for sustained long-term growth.
Evaluating Customers
Imran: Suppose I’m a founder. I just made my first sales call. What should I do next? How do I qualify the customer?
Sam:
I think qualifying customers is indeed essential. Let’s start there. At the end of the first call, ask something like, “How impactful would this be for your business?” or “Given everything we discussed today, how interested are you in moving forward?” Don’t waste time chasing people who treat it as low priority. Focus instead on those who show real interest and prioritize them. Also, if you keep hearing “this isn’t really a priority for us” from your target customers, that’s a signal—you may need to reevaluate your product-market fit. I’ve seen founders make the mistake of rushing into hiring SDRs or AEs before achieving product-market fit.
Sales Process
Imran: You talked about creating a process—listing decision-makers and showing that to prospects. Why is this important, and why should every founder do it?
Sam:
I see two points here. One from the founder’s perspective. A common issue I hear is hesitation or confusion during the sales cycle—chasing leads without clarity. So first, from the founder’s side, you need absolute clarity—like pinning steps to paper—defining exactly what to do next. On the buyer’s side, buyers often don’t know how to buy your product. Your job as a founder or salesperson is to guide them—teach them the best path, how people typically start using your product. You need to solve for both roles simultaneously.
Creating FOMO
Imran: Finally, how do you create FOMO? You mentioned discounts—I think that’s one factor, but there are many others. What should first-time founders do?
Sam:
I think sales is fundamentally psychology. One way to apply sales psychology is by creating FOMO. It’s not one-size-fits-all, but different approaches work at different stages. In the early stage, you might offer special access to those who would benefit most. For example: “As you can see, we’re currently in beta, we don’t have a website yet, and we’re only accepting a limited number of customers—we’re almost full. We can let you in, but we just need to know if you’re in. If so, here’s how we get started.” This creates time pressure and urgency. As you scale, other tactics emerge. At Zenefits, we had an implementation fee we’d waive based on timing—e.g., “If you implement before year-end, we’ll waive the entire fee.” This created urgency on the buyer’s side. As you grow, these become levers you adjust over time—powerful tools to drive action.
When to Hire Salespeople
Imran: You're a founder hitting $1M in revenue. Reflecting on your time at Brex, when did you join? When do you think a founder should hire their first salesperson?
Sam:
I don't think it's necessarily tied to revenue. Everyone should start with founder-led sales—especially in B2B. You can bring in external sales support once you have several paying customers who aren’t friends or family. When you’re ready to hire your first salesperson, it maps to different revenue levels and customer counts. If you’re selling enterprise solutions to large companies, you’ll have fewer customers but higher revenue per deal. If your ACV is six figures and you have three or four paying customers with around $500K in total revenue, that might be the time to bring in a sales rep. At Brex, we targeted startups. Before hiring our first sales rep, we already had dozens of customers. Our revenue was minimal—just transaction fees from limited card usage. So it’s not strictly about total revenue or customer count.
When you’re ready to hire your first salesperson, hire two reps, not one. There are multiple reasons. First, the speed of learning doubles. With two people trying different approaches and sharing insights, you accelerate success. Your progress is much faster because you have two data points, not one.
Another big reason: if you hire only one person and they fail, you won’t know if it’s a bad hire or a product-market misfit. But with two hires, you get clearer signals. If both succeed—that’s ideal—and strong evidence of product-market fit and scalability. If one succeeds and one fails, it’s likely a hiring mismatch—replace the underperformer with someone more like the successful one. If both fail, it strongly suggests your product isn’t ready for external sales. You need to rethink how to set up sales for success. Hiring just one gives you no useful data. So always hire two. Once you have two successful reps, then hire a sales manager to scale the team further.
Imran: In one of your talks, you mentioned not hiring a sales leader right away—first hire two sales reps, and only bring in a sales leader if things go well. Why is that?
Sam:
I advise nearly all startups to hire sales reps before hiring a sales leader. When I joined Brex, I brought in top-tier sales talent—people who were better reps than I ever was, precisely because I’d been a sales leader for years. After years in leadership, if I went back to being a sales rep, I probably wouldn’t perform as well as a truly exceptional individual contributor. That’s one reason. Another key point: for most companies, top sales leaders won’t join a company that has no sales team—only founders closing deals. It’s too risky for them. The path we took—first proving success with two strong reps, reaching $1M in revenue, then bringing in a sales leader to scale the organization—allows the leader to focus on what they do best: leading, recruiting, and managing teams, rather than closing individual deals. That’s our philosophy.
When to Invest in Marketing
Imran: Founders often ask, ‘Should we start spending on marketing and partnerships?’ What advice do you have for pre-seed or seed-stage founders? Should they focus on marketing or partnerships, or purely on product and sales?
Sam:
Let’s return to the concentric circle concept. At the beginning, by definition, you have no brand, no marketing. You have a founder and some engineers who’ve built a product. You test it through your network—people you can easily reach and pitch. You gain some customers. Once you have proof of product-market fit, you hire a few sales reps. You now have a website, a sales team, and more customers.
We expand beyond that inner circle. At Brex, one thing we did—and I want to abstract this for other founders—is that as these circles grow, you want to use marketing or branding to make customer acquisition more efficient. Two examples from Brex: First, when we launched in June 2018, we wanted to create buzz. Beyond fundraising PR, we sponsored podcasts. Most notably, we put up billboards all over San Francisco—costing around $200K–$300K. This was pure brand marketing. But thinking back to the concentric model: we did heavy PR around fundraising, put up billboards, and every employee updated their LinkedIn. Then we specifically targeted companies and founders in the areas where our billboards were placed. A founder passing our billboard near downtown SF on their commute was far more likely to respond than one in New York, who wouldn’t have the same exposure.
So to directly answer your question: invest in marketing only after proving product-market fit. The stage where this starts to make sense is when founders have acquired customers, sales reps can close deals, and you’re confident in your ability to scale. Then, begin investing in marketing to make your customer acquisition more efficient.
Large Markets vs. Small Markets
Imran: Final question—crypto is largely a slow-growth market. What advice do you have for founders who don’t have many large enterprise clients but serve more SMBs?
Sam:
The issue is that the addressable market for this type of company is limited, since there aren’t that many crypto companies compared to broader markets. While not a perfect analogy, there are similarities with Brex. Brex launched as the first corporate card for startups. The startup market in the U.S. represents a small fraction of global businesses—not as small as crypto, but still narrow. Here’s what helped us succeed early, which relates to your question. First, our positioning was extremely clear: we were the first corporate card, and everyone knows what a corporate card is. Clarity of product was a major advantage. Second, we were the first company offering corporate cards specifically for startups. We were very deliberate in market selection. If you know Brex’s story, one reason it succeeded among startups was our “no personal guarantee” feature. Traditional credit cards require founders to personally guarantee debt, affecting their credit and exposing them to personal liability. We also underwrote based on cash balances in the company’s bank account. If your startup has millions in the bank, you get a high limit. Compared to Amex, where founders might get only $10K, our limits were much higher based on cash reserves.
Less known is that we weren’t the first to offer this underwriting model. A company called Divvy, and possibly others, existed—but they weren’t as intentional about customer targeting. So when Brex launched the first corporate card for startups, if you were a founder, seeing that brand immediately sparked interest because you identified with that narrow niche. So for companies selling to crypto, a few things to remember: carefully consider your positioning and target audience. Also, like the startup community, the crypto community is tightly connected. Be present where they gather—often conferences. And just like startup founders, crypto founders and employees know each other. Leverage your existing relationships to boost brand awareness among potential new customers. This is possible when selling to a narrow market—much harder when selling to everyone.
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