Holloway

B2B sales, from first customer to scale.

The proven, in-the-trenches handbook to accelerate success in early-stage sales. A startup sales veteran coaches you with hundreds of hard-won insights for founders and aspiring sales leaders.

  • 560-page online book
  • Digital access to this title in the Holloway Reader
  • Downloadable PDF for personal offline use
Length: 560 pages
Edition: e1.0.1
Last Updated: 2022-08-22
Language: English
ISBN (Holloway.com):
978-1-952120-05-3
$40$28
Readwise Reader Special
Why read on Holloway?

Founding Sales

The Early-Stage Go-To-Market Handbook

by Pete Kazanjy

Founding Sales is a practical guide to startup sales for founders and other first-time sales staff, written by Pete Kazanjy, founder of Atrium Sales Analytics and the Modern Sales Leadership and Operations Community.

This book is the distillation of Kazanjy’s experience at TalentBin, where he went from a founder with a product marketing and product management background to early sales guy, early sales manager, and eventual post-acquisition sales leader at Monster Worldwide, in addition to his later experience founding Modern Sales, the nation’s largest sales operations, enablement, and leadership community.

The book’s goal is to accelerate the learning and success of those who find themselves in a similar spot Pete did in early 2011β€”don’t know much about B2B sales, and need to figure it out in a hurry.

Founding Sales covers all the practical details and mental models you need to know to succeed in sales, including:

  • Mindset changes for first-time sales professionals
  • Product marketing and sales basics
  • Going from 0 to 30 customers
  • Understanding and finding customers
  • Pitching, negotiation, and closing deals
  • Customer success
  • Sales management
  • Scaling
  • Hiring
  • Onboarding and training

The book has been included in business school curriculum at Wharton, purchased by venture funds to share with their portfolio companies, and read by hundreds of devoted fans. Join the Founding Sales community today and get started on your journey to sales success.

Courtney Nash β€” Editor
About the Author
Pete Kazanjy
Atrium
Pete Kazanjy is a serial founder, and seasoned early stage SaaS executive, advisor, and investor. Pete foundedΒ TalentBin, a category-defining talent search engine and recruiting CRM, which exited to Monster Worldwide in early 2014. Pete currently is the founder ofΒ Atrium, a proactive sales performance analysis solution. At TalentBin, Pete went from product and product marketing founder generalist, to first sales rep, first sales manager, first VP of Sales, all the way to leading new product sales for 600+ sales reps at Monster worldwide. Pete also founded and runs the canonical invite-only nationwide sales operations and management peer education community Modern Sales, featuring 13,000+ members from a who’s who of sales operations, enablement, management, and leadership from 5k+ leading sales organization’s. Additionally, Pete is a well known expert in early stage go-to-market and β€œfounder selling”—helping organizations figure out their early critical positioning and selling activities. He has done substantialΒ speakingΒ andΒ writingΒ on the topic, including being a frequent contributor toΒ First Round ReviewΒ andΒ Saleshacker, and advises a number of enterprise software companies on establishing and optimizing their sales and success motions.

Featured Reviews

A successful go to market is key in giving your early stage company the best chance of success. Founders who lean into this and get good at selling will have a key advantage, and Founding Sales is a great resource to help founders do just that.
Josh Kopelman (Founder, First Round Capital andΒ Half.com)
The more people with modern, intelligent, empathetic selling skills, the better. Founding Sales is a wonderful onramp into gaining those skills.
Kyle Porter (Founder and CEO, SalesLoft)
Having gone from founder to seller to sales leader, I know from experience that the struggle is real. Founding Sales truly sets you up for success on that path, so you can eventually graduate to true scale and revenue acceleration!
Mark Roberge (Former CRO, Hubspot and author of The Sales Acceleration Formula)
A key part of the successful B2B SaaS journey is for founders to successfullyΒ sell their first handful of customers before professionalizing theirΒ sales org. Founding Sales provides the tooling for founders and other early stage executives to do just that.
David Skok (Partner, Matrix Ventures)
You can’t build a revenue house based on outbound selling without a solid foundation. Founding Sales helps founders, and other first time sellers, understand the basics that create that foundation and allows them to successfully scale.
Trish Bertuzzi (Founder, The Bridge Group and author of The Sales Development Playbook)
Modern sales organizations succeed by a thoughtful, rigorous approach to the art and science of sales. Founding Sales introduces founders and other first time sellers to these concepts clearly and comprehensively.
Jeremey Donovan (SVP Sales Strategy and Sales Operations at Salesloft, author of Leading Sales Development)
Predictable Revenue introduced the world to scalable outbound sales. But it won’t work without a solid foundation. Founding Sales helps founders and other first-time sellers go from a dead stop to first gear in sales (the hardest part). Time after time first time founders and sellers try to sell and grow sales too fast, leading to failure. Founding Sales gets you started, building that foundation first so you’re prepared to scale later.
Aaron Ross (author, Predictable Revenue)

Table of Contents

Part I
Foundations
Mindset Changes for First-Time Sales Professionals Read Preview
Sales Narrative and Product Marketing Basics
Early-Stage Sales Materials Basics
Part II
From Lead to Sale
Early Prospecting Read Preview
Prospect Outreach and Demo Appointment Setting
Early Inbound Lead Capture and Response
Sales Pitches For Startup Founders
Down Funnel Selling
Part III
Customer Success
Customer Success Basics Read Preview
Mechanisms for Customer Success
Support Sites and Asynchronous Support Materials
Learning From Your Customer Success Team
Customer Success Role Specialization
Part IV
Scaling Sales at Your Startup
Early Sales Management and Scaling Concepts Read Preview
High-Impact Sales Hiring
High-Impact Sales Onboarding and Training
Conclusion: Where Do You Go From Here?

Get lifetime access now.

The full book, interactive and searchable. Plus all future updates.
Instant lifetime access
$40$28
Readwise Reader Special
  • 560-page online book
  • Digital access to this title in the Holloway Reader
  • Downloadable PDF for personal offline use

Does this sound like you?

I’ve never sold anything, but we have this B2B product we built, and I need to see if people will buy it.
We’ve sold a couple deals here and there, but how can I methodically scale that up?
I need to hire some sales people to help me sell more. How do I do that?
There’s all these scattered blog posts on β€˜How to sell’ or β€˜How to scale’—I need something that walks me through it from beginning to end.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What exactly am I buying?

    By purchasing a title on Holloway.com, you get full digital access to the book and all other resources that come with it, for unlimited use by you. That means you get lifetime access online for that title on the web, using the Holloway Reader. In contrast with Kindle and other ebooks, this also includes future updates from the author or editors. Finally, depending on the title, you get additional digital resources like PDF downloads, documents, spreadsheets, or audio clips! If you purchase a bundle, you get all additional resources for each title in the bundle.

  • What is the Holloway Reader?

    The Holloway Reader lets you read and engage with books bought on Holloway. Many of our readers call it the best reading experience for books on the webβ€”you use it right in your browser, on desktop or mobile. In contrast to ebooks and paper books, online content in the Holloway Reader is always up to date, including updates when changes to the content are made, like responses to reader questions, new data, or new developments. It also lets us experiment with what the future of the book should look like, offering features you won’t find in Kindle or Apple Books.* It includes expert commentary in the margins and offers bookmarks and highlights, instant definitions of technical terms from a glossary, instant previews of links and footnotes, and a powerful search capability only available on Holloway titlesβ€”and we have a lot more on the way.

  • Are there any discounts?

    We do offer discounts if you select a bundle or more than one title during checkout. We also offer student discounts to individuals with a valid .edu email address.* Before a book is released, it is available for pre-order at a discount. By pre-ordering a title, you’re supporting us and our authors in their work and you may get a note from the author, early access, or other perks.

    Finally, if you sign up on our email list, in addition to excerpts and updates about our titles you’ll get any occasional special offers (infrequentlyβ€”we don’t want to spam folks!).

  • Can I buy Holloway titles as a gift?

    Yes! You can purchase and instantly share lifetime digital access for any title in the catalog. You can do this for a friend or a small group by selecting the number of invites you want to purchase during checkout. You’ll also get a receipt, so you may easily expense it if it’s a business purchase.

  • Can I buy Holloway titles for my team or my company?

    Yes! It’s just like a gift for a few people, as above. For example, if you purchase 5 invites, you can forward the invite link or invitation email to the 5 people on your team.

    We also offer additional options for team access for companies, groups, and classes. Use the team access form (just 3 questions) to set this up and get full pricing information or contact sales@holloway.com.

  • I have more questions!

    Don’t we all. Check the full FAQ. And we’d love to hear from you at hello@holloway.com.

Founding Sales
Instant lifetime access
$40$28
Readwise Reader Special

Learn more.

Enter your email for more details, updates from the authors, and free samples from the book.

Startup Foundations Bundle

Five essential guides for early startups, written by entrepreneurs with decades of experience. Comprehensive, practical, and filled with insights from top startup leaders.

Equity Compensation(
$25value
)Raising Venture Capital(
$100value
)Remote Work(
$35value
)Technical Recruiting and Hiring(
$75value
)Founding Sales(
$40value
)
$275 value
$195$136.50
Readwise Reader Special
Written by professionals who have worked at dozens of top companies...

Other Titles

Readers of this book also purchased these titles

Holloway Guide to
Equity Compensation
by Joshua LevyJoe Wallin
$25$17.50
Readwise Reader Special
Stock options, RSUs, job offers, and taxesβ€”a detailed reference, including hundreds of resources, explained from the ground up, for both employees and managers.
Holloway Guide to
Raising Venture Capital
by Andy Sparks
$100$70
Readwise Reader Special
A current and comprehensive resource for entrepreneurs, with technical detail, practical knowledge, real-world scenarios, and pitfalls to avoid.
Angel Investing
by Joe WallinPete Baltaxe
$40$28
Readwise Reader Special
A practical and detailed guide to angel investing that is essential for beginners and seasoned investors, as well as founders raising an angel round. Covers fundamentals, finding deals, financings, term sheets, example documents, and common pitfalls.
Founding Sales
by Pete Kazanjy
$40$28
Readwise Reader Special
A detailed and tactical guide to accelerate learning and success on the early-stage sales journey, from founder to early salesperson to sales leadership. Written by a sales expert for startup founders and first-time sales staff.
Stop Asking Questions
by Andrew Warner
$100$70
Readwise Reader Special
The comprehensive guide to hosting better interviews for podcasters, salespeople, entrepreneurs, and more. Lessons from a veteran podcast host with 2,000+ episodes.
Keep in touch.
We’ll send early announcements of new books from Holloway, free excerpts, and offers available only on our email list.

More Holloway Titles

Now Available
Now Available