Paradigm: 5 Key Tips for Hiring a BD Lead for Crypto Projects
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Paradigm: 5 Key Tips for Hiring a BD Lead for Crypto Projects
An outstanding BD leader needs to be capable of simultaneously building sales infrastructure and leading end-to-end sales processes.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Nick Martitsch (Head of Paradigm GTM)
Translation & Editing: TechFlow
Summary
In the cryptocurrency space, competition for early growth leaders is intensifying. Projects are increasingly inclined to hire influential KOLs as core members of their initial growth teams. The key reason behind this trend is that distribution capability often determines the success or failure of Web3 projects. Identifying the right business development (BD) leader and hiring at the optimal time can significantly shape a project’s growth trajectory.
This article summarizes Paradigm's guidance for founders on hiring their first BD lead, covering everything from timing to required capabilities.
The BD lead plays a critical role in driving TVL (Total Value Locked) growth. Their responsibilities go beyond market expansion and user acquisition—they also include building partnerships, optimizing product distribution strategies, and expanding the ecosystem. A strong BD candidate must possess exceptional communication skills, sharp market insight, high execution ability, and a strong sense of ownership. From the founder’s perspective, multiple factors must be considered when hiring a BD lead, including timing, capability assessment, and execution evaluation.
Don’t Abandon Founder-Led Sales Too Early
Founders are often the best salespeople for their own products. Maintaining a founder-led sales model during the pursuit of the first customers and MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development is crucial for several reasons:
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Easier to close first deals: For startups without a launched product, customers are betting more on the founder’s compelling vision than on the existing product. Founders can better convince potential clients with technical depth, product vision, and passion—motivating them to become the first early adopters.
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Helps build a better product: In the early stages, sales and product development should be one unified process. Founders need tight feedback loops with potential customers to refine the v1 product roadmap. Introducing new hires too early may create unnecessary friction and communication gaps.
Generally, it’s time to consider hiring the first BD lead once initial customer demand has been validated and the product needs broader market outreach. For protocol-based projects that require extensive external ecosystems before launch, this process might begin earlier. But typically, it’s best to wait until the project already has a small base of loyal customers.
Ability to Turn “Loose Experimentation” into “Scalable Models”
The BD lead should transform the founder’s non-scalable methods of acquiring early customers into repeatable, scalable sales processes—enabling the company to reach its next hundred or even thousand customers. Key responsibilities for the BD lead in the early stage include:
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Setting up a CRM system suited to the company’s needs (e.g., Excel, Salesforce, Copper) and populating it with relevant market data.
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Qualifying inbound inquiries, initiating outbound outreach to new prospects, and involving founders in key deals when necessary.
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Hosting weekly product line meetings to keep leadership informed about market penetration and sales bottlenecks.
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Creating sales enablement materials (e.g., case studies, product updates, onboarding guides) and testing which messaging drives conversion.
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Serving as the voice of the customer by guiding product teams toward developing essential features and capabilities.
In short, an outstanding BD lead must simultaneously build sales infrastructure and manage end-to-end sales processes. Excellence in only one area is insufficient.
High Autonomy and Crypto-Nativity
Research shows that top-performing BD leads are often former founders or early employees who helped build companies from scratch. They deeply understand accountability and take strong ownership of progress toward company goals.
Beyond strong communication and organizational skills, “crypto-nativity” should be a key hiring criterion. Below are soft skills that help assess whether a candidate can endure multiple industry cycles:
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Adaptability: Early-stage sales in crypto differ drastically from sales roles in large, established enterprises where processes, infrastructure, and narratives are already set. Growth leaders in crypto must improvise and adjust strategies as market conditions and narratives shift—what works in a bull market may fail completely in a bear market (and vice versa).
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Resilience: Due to the industry’s cyclical nature, candidates must be highly passionate about crypto’s mission and not discouraged by delayed results. Successful BD strategies in crypto are typically discovered only after repeated failures, learning, and iteration. Candidates driven solely by short-term financial gains are likely to drop out during inevitable market downturns.
While it’s difficult to find candidates who meet all criteria perfectly, those with high autonomy and crypto-nativity lay the foundation for a project’s long-term success.
Never Underestimate Tactical Execution
Many crypto startups focus excessively on strategy while overlooking the importance of tactical execution. Surprisingly, surveys of application technology stack purchasing decisions reveal that the deciding factor is often responsiveness—such as promptly replying to inbound inquiries, quickly following up on calls, or efficiently resolving complex technical issues.
The compounding effect of good tactics creates long-term winners. Tactical execution isn’t just about task completion—it directly reflects sensitivity to customer needs and proactive action. Strong execution builds customer trust, improves conversion rates, and provides a competitive edge in crowded markets. Therefore, prioritizing candidates who can run efficient sales processes and prevent lead leakage is crucial. Below are interview questions to evaluate a candidate’s sales abilities:
- What criteria would you use to classify inbound inquiries as low, medium, or high priority? How would your sales process differ across these levels?
- During exploratory sales calls, what questions would you ask to determine if a prospect is a good fit?
- Do you think it’s appropriate to present a slide deck directly during a sales call? Or how would you prefer to structure such conversations?
- How soon after the first sales call would you follow up with a prospect? What kind of message would you typically send?
- If a prospect goes cold, what strategies would you try to re-engage them?
- Once a customer enters implementation, how would you adjust communication platforms, tone, and frequency?
The value of execution lies in turning strategy into tangible outcomes. No matter how sophisticated a strategy is, without solid execution, it remains theoretical. While helping shape the company’s distribution strategy is important for a BD lead, real impact is often seen in daily operational details. Efficient tactical execution enables rapid response to market demands and creates differentiated advantages in customer experience—earning long-term trust and reputation.
Therefore, when selecting a BD lead, founders must look beyond strategic thinking and closely evaluate the candidate’s ability to get things done. Only those who excel in both areas can deliver sustained growth momentum.
Measure Performance Using Leading Indicators
In an emerging industry like crypto, many external factors can affect traditional growth metrics such as revenue, TVL, number of customers, or transaction volume. While these outcome-oriented metrics are important for evaluating BD performance, equal attention should be paid to leading indicators that drive those results.
Founders should define a clear North Star metric for the BD function based on early market signals. Additionally, they should establish a set of leading indicators to remain resilient against market shifts, regulatory changes, or macro events.
Below is an example of how founders might structure goals for a BD lead:
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North Star Metric: Achieve $5 million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) by year-end
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Primary Metrics:
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Number of new paying customers
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Average Contract Value (ACV) per customer
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Leading Indicators:
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Number of deals entering evaluation phase
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Number of new leads generated
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Number of exploratory calls completed with prospects
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Volume of outbound messages sent to prospects
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Why Are Leading Indicators So Important?
Leading indicators help identify bottlenecks in the BD pipeline. For example, low lead volume may indicate the need to optimize acquisition channels, while few deals in evaluation could point to inefficiencies in the mid-to-late stages of the sales funnel. These metrics allow teams to detect and address problems early—rather than waiting for primary metrics to deteriorate before taking action.
Dynamically Adjust Metrics to Respond to Change
The crypto industry evolves rapidly, and external forces—such as market volatility, regulatory shifts, or technological breakthroughs—can significantly impact operations. Therefore, founders must regularly review these leading indicators and adapt them as needed. For instance, in a bear market, emphasis may shift toward increasing the volume and quality of outbound messages; in highly competitive environments, focus may turn to improving call success rates and conversion efficiency.
Using this framework, founders can better balance external pressures while ensuring the BD process remains effective. Moreover, leading indicators motivate teams to focus on controllable, actionable efforts—creating more growth opportunities even amid uncertainty.
Conclusion
Interestingly, many outstanding BD professionals eventually become founders themselves. This is no surprise—they engage daily with markets, products, and users, mastering the art of going “from 0 to 1.” Perhaps the BD lead you hire today will be tomorrow’s Web3 unicorn founder.
Finally, best of luck to all project teams in finding that “perfect BD”—and soaring to new heights!
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