Account Executive

Overview

You sell Mentimeter's interactive presentation and polling software to businesses and educational institutions. You run full-cycle deals from initial demo through contract signature, focusing on getting customers value quickly and expanding usage over time. You work closely with SDRs who set your meetings, CS on account handoffs, and cross-functionally with Marketing and Product since this is a product-led company.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Growth stage (412 employees, established product)

Size: 412 employees globally

Growth: Actively hiring, recently promoted 6 SDRs to AE in Stockholm in last 6 months, adding external talent

Market Position: Established player in interactive presentation space, competing against Slido, Kahoot, Poll Everywhere

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 40-50% Inbound - Product-led motion with free/freemium users, hand-raisers from website, inbound MQLs from marketing
• 30-40% SDR-sourced - Dedicated SDR team books qualified meetings, you inherit them warm
• 10-20% Self-sourced/expansion - Some outbound to strategic accounts or expansion within existing customers

SDR/AE Structure: Dedicated SDR team sets meetings for you. Recent post highlights strong SDR→AE promotion path, so SDRs are trained in their sales motion.

SE Support: No mention of Sales Engineers - likely you run demos yourself since the product is fairly straightforward (interactive presentations/polling)

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Slido (now Microsoft), Poll Everywhere, Kahoot (education-focused), Zoom polls (basic built-in features)

How They Differentiate: More sophisticated feature set than basic polling tools, cleaner UX than older competitors, works across in-person/remote/hybrid setups

Common Objections: "We can just use Zoom polls or Teams polls for free", "PowerPoint has polling now", "Too expensive for how often we'd use it", "IT won't approve another SaaS tool"

Win Themes: Better engagement data/analytics, professional presentation features beyond basic polls, ease of use for non-technical presenters, works with existing presentation tools

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Active Deals (40%) | Discovery/Demos (30%) | Pipeline Management (20%) | Internal (10%)

Key Activities

• Running product demos: You walk prospects through Mentimeter's features - live polling, word clouds, Q&A, quizzes. Most demos are 30-45 minutes. You're showing how it works in real meetings/presentations, often doing interactive elements during the demo itself. You'll do 5-8 demos per week.

• Multi-threading deals: You start with one contact (often L&D, HR, Marketing, or a team lead) but need to expand to budget holders and IT for approval. Deals stall when you can't get to economic buyers or when IT security review drags out. You spend time on LinkedIn research, asking for intros, and navigating org charts.

• Negotiating and closing: Most deals involve some negotiation on user count, contract length, or price. You're working with their new Revenue Architecture framework to structure deals that drive adoption and set up expansion. Procurement can add 2-3 weeks to close timeline.

• Working the product-led funnel: A chunk of your pipeline comes from users already on free/trial plans. You're reviewing usage data to see who's active, reaching out to high-engagement users, and converting them to paid. Some are easy (they're already sold), others need convincing to pay for features they're not using yet.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Product seems simple, selling isn't: People look at Mentimeter and think "it's just polls" - you have to sell the value of better engagement, data, and professional features. Many prospects don't see urgency since their current solution (even if it's bad) technically works.

• Budget battles in a tight economy: This isn't mission-critical infrastructure. When budgets tighten, "nice to have" tools like interactive presentation software get cut or delayed. You'll hear "we love it but timing isn't right" a lot.

• Long approval chains for small deals: Even $10K deals can require IT security review, legal review, and multiple approvals. You're chasing stakeholders for weeks on deals that should close faster. The internal process at customer orgs often takes longer than your actual sales process.

What Success Looks Like

• You close 3-5 new logos per month depending on deal size, hitting your quarterly revenue number consistently
• You convert 20-25% of your qualified demos to closed-won (this takes work - most demos don't close)
• You build a pipeline that's 3-4x your quarterly quota so you can absorb the deals that slip or die

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Learning & Development / Training managers (corporate)
• HR leaders running all-hands or engagement programs
• Marketing/Communications teams doing events
• Department heads with budget authority (sometimes directors/VPs)
• Education administrators (universities, training programs)

What They Care About:

• Can they get people to actually participate in meetings/presentations (vs. awkward silence)
• Does it make them look good when they present (professional polish)
• Can they prove ROI through engagement metrics
• Is it easy enough that everyone on their team can use it without training
• Does it work in their specific setup (in-person, remote, hybrid)

Requirements

• 2+ years in full-cycle B2B SaaS sales (or strong track record as SDR ready to step up)
• Experience running your own demos - no SE to lean on here
• Comfortable with product-led sales motions (working with trial users, usage data)
• Can work independently with clear playbooks but also contribute to improving them
• Based in Stockholm (onsite role with international team)
• Fluent English required given the international team makeup