Overview
You're selling Utila's enterprise wallet infrastructure to banks, fintechs, and crypto-native companies launching or scaling digital asset operations. You take warm leads from BDRs and inbound, run demos, build business cases, and navigate multi-stakeholder buying committees that include treasury, compliance, IT, and legal. Deals take 4-6 months on average because you're selling infrastructure that touches money movement and regulatory compliance.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Full-cycle AE (demo to close) |
| Sales Motion | Balanced (50% BDR-sourced, 30% inbound, 20% self-source) |
| Deal Complexity | Enterprise/Strategic |
| Sales Cycle | 4-6 months |
| Deal Size | $100K-500K ACV (estimated based on infrastructure pricing) |
| Quota (est.) | $800K-1.2M/year |
Company Context
Stage: Series A ($40M raised)
Size: Unknown (startup scale, likely 50-150 employees)
Growth: Actively hiring for sales team, Head of Sales running aggressive networking and partnership strategy
Market Position: Challenger in institutional crypto infrastructure - competing for deals against custody providers and internal build decisions
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 50% BDR-sourced - qualified meetings from outbound prospecting
- 30% Inbound - demo requests from website, event leads, referrals from Josh's network
- 20% Self-source - your own outbound to strategic accounts, warm introductions
SDR/AE Structure: Dedicated BDRs book initial meetings, you own everything after first call
SE Support: Likely have sales engineers for technical deep-dives and POC support given complexity of infrastructure product
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Fireblocks, BitGo, Anchorage Digital, traditional banking tech vendors adding crypto, internal build options
How They Differentiate: Enterprise-grade infrastructure purpose-built for institutional stablecoin and crypto operations - compliance-first approach for regulated entities
Common Objections: "We're building this in-house", "Too expensive vs competitors", "Regulatory uncertainty makes this risky", "Not ready to launch yet", "Need more proof points in our vertical"
Win Themes: Faster time-to-market than building, institutional security standards, regulatory compliance features, total cost of ownership vs internal build
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Active Deals (40%) | Discovery/Demos (25%) | Internal Coordination (20%) | Prospecting (15%)
Key Activities
- Run Discovery & Demos: 3-5 demos per week with new prospects. You're diagnosing their digital asset strategy, current infrastructure gaps, and regulatory requirements. Demos are technical - you walk through wallet architecture, custody models, and compliance workflows.
- Navigate Buying Committees: Schedule and run calls with treasury ops, compliance, IT security, legal, and product teams. You're building consensus across groups that have very different priorities and risk tolerances.
- Build Business Cases: Create ROI models comparing Utila vs building in-house. You're quantifying time-to-market value, engineering cost avoidance, and operational efficiency gains.
- Manage POCs and Pilots: Coordinate technical evaluations with your SE team. Deals often require 30-60 day pilots where prospects test the infrastructure with real (or test) transactions.
- Deal Advancement: Spend significant time just getting to the next meeting - chasing busy executives, waiting on legal review, following up on procurement questions. Many deals slip quarters because priorities shift with crypto market conditions.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Crypto market volatility kills deals - when Bitcoin crashes, digital asset initiatives get deprioritized or frozen. You'll watch hot pipeline go cold overnight.
- Long, unpredictable cycles - 4-6 months is average, but deals can drag to 9-12 months. You're selling infrastructure, so there are security reviews, legal reviews, compliance reviews, and procurement negotiations.
- Multi-stakeholder complexity - you need buy-in from treasury (business case), compliance (regulatory comfort), IT (technical validation), and legal (contract terms). Any one can block the deal.
- Regulatory uncertainty - prospects worry about changing crypto regulations. You spend time addressing "what if" scenarios that may never happen.
- Build vs buy debates - large institutions often want to build in-house. You're convincing them they'll underestimate the complexity and cost.
- Proof point pressure - prospects want to see customers in their exact industry and use case. Early stage means you won't always have the perfect reference.
What Success Looks Like
- Close 8-12 deals per year at $100K-500K ACV to hit $800K-1.2M quota
- Maintain 3-4x pipeline coverage (always have $3-4M in active pipeline)
- 25-30% win rate on qualified opportunities (high given deal complexity)
- Keep deals moving - advance 60-70% of opportunities to next stage each quarter
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- VP/Director of Treasury Operations at banks and fintechs (economic buyer)
- Head of Digital Assets or Crypto Product (business champion)
- CISO or VP Engineering (technical validator)
- General Counsel or Head of Compliance (risk validator)
What They Care About:
- Regulatory compliance - they need infrastructure that meets banking regulations, AML requirements, and can adapt to changing rules
- Enterprise security - institutional-grade custody, key management, and disaster recovery are table stakes
- Speed to market - they're under pressure to launch digital asset offerings and can't wait 18 months to build
- Total cost of ownership - comparing your pricing vs internal build cost (engineering, ongoing maintenance, compliance updates)
- Vendor stability - they're trusting you with financial infrastructure, so your funding, team, and roadmap matter
Requirements
- 3-5 years selling B2B SaaS or infrastructure, ideally in fintech, financial services, or crypto/web3
- Experience with 6+ month enterprise sales cycles and multi-stakeholder deals
- Technical aptitude to understand wallet infrastructure, blockchain concepts, and financial operations
- Comfortable with crypto market volatility and deals that stall due to external factors
- Strong business case and ROI modeling skills for build vs buy discussions
- Track record navigating procurement, legal, and security reviews at mid-market to enterprise companies
- Existing relationships in crypto, fintech, or banking a plus but not required