Overview
You're a full-cycle sales rep selling custom development projects and ongoing dev support to small businesses and digital agencies. The product is services—web development, mobile apps, AI automation workflows, and white-label dev capacity for agencies. You find your own prospects, have initial conversations, scope technical requirements, and close the deal. There's no SDR team feeding you leads.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Full-cycle AE / BDE (self-sourcing) |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy, pure hunting |
| Deal Complexity | Consultative / Project-based |
| Sales Cycle | 2-8 weeks (varies by project size) |
| Deal Size | $5K-50K per project (estimate) |
| Quota (est.) | Not specified - commission-only |
Company Context
Stage: Bootstrap / Very early (listed as 1 employee on LinkedIn)
Size: Micro company, founder-led
Growth: Actively building out sales function for the first time
Market Position: Small player in crowded IT services/dev shop space competing against thousands of agencies, offshore firms, and freelancer platforms
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 100% Outbound - you build your own pipeline from scratch
- No marketing engine, no inbound leads
- Founder may have some existing relationships, but assume you're starting cold
SDR/AE Structure: You are the SDR and AE. No sales support.
SE Support: Founder/technical team can help with scoping, but you're driving all sales conversations.
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Thousands of dev shops and agencies (Toptal, local web dev agencies, offshore firms in India/Eastern Europe, Upwork/Fiverr for smaller projects)
How They Differentiate: Positioning around AI automation (n8n, Zapier, Make) and white-label partnership model for agencies
Common Objections: "We already have a dev team," "Too expensive vs offshore," "How do I know you'll deliver on time," "Can we see similar projects you've done"
Win Themes: When they can demonstrate specific automation ROI, technical expertise in niche tools, or solve an urgent problem the prospect can't handle in-house
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Prospecting (50%) | Sales Conversations (30%) | Admin/Scoping (20%)
Key Activities
- Cold outreach: You're on LinkedIn, email, and possibly cold calling to find businesses that need dev work or agencies that need white-label support. Expect to reach out to 50-100 prospects per day to get a few conversations going.
- Discovery calls: When someone responds, you're qualifying their needs, budget, and timeline. These are 30-45 minute calls where you're figuring out if they're a real opportunity or just shopping around.
- Scoping and proposals: For serious prospects, you're working with the technical team to scope the project, estimate hours, and create a proposal. This can take several hours per deal and many proposals go nowhere.
- Following up relentlessly: Most deals don't close fast. You'll spend a lot of time chasing prospects who went quiet, waiting on budgets to get approved, or competing against 2-3 other vendors they're evaluating.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- You're cold calling/emailing businesses who get pitched by dev shops constantly. Response rates will be low (2-5% is normal).
- Commission-only structure means inconsistent income. If you don't close deals, you don't get paid. Most custom dev deals take 3-6 weeks to close, longer if procurement is involved.
- You're selling in a commoditized market. Prospects will push back on price and compare you to cheaper offshore options. Differentiating on value is difficult when the deliverable is code.
- No brand recognition or inbound demand. You're building trust from scratch on every deal.
- Projects can fall apart late in the cycle—budgets get cut, priorities change, or they decide to hire in-house instead.
What Success Looks Like
- Closing 2-4 projects per month in the $10-25K range
- Building a pipeline of 15-20 active opportunities at various stages
- Converting 10-15% of qualified conversations into closed deals
- Getting referrals and repeat business from satisfied clients
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- Small business owners (e-commerce, real estate, restaurants) who need custom software or automation
- Digital agency owners who need white-label dev capacity for client projects
- Operations managers at growing companies looking to automate manual processes
What They Care About:
- Can you actually deliver what you're promising (trust/credibility is the biggest barrier)
- Total cost and payment terms (most will want fixed-price projects, not hourly)
- Timeline—when can they go live
- Post-launch support and maintenance
Requirements
- Proven ability to generate your own pipeline through cold outreach (LinkedIn, email, calls)
- Experience selling services (not just products)—you need to scope, propose, and handle objections about custom work
- Comfortable with commission-only compensation and the income volatility that comes with it
- Technical enough to have credible conversations about web development, APIs, automation tools, and integrations
- Self-motivated and resilient—you'll hear "no" a lot and need to keep going
- Onsite presence required (location not specified, but assume you're working from their office or meeting clients in person)