Sales Role (Commerce AI B2B)

Overview

You're an early sales hire at Emfas, a B2B Commerce AI startup in Stockholm. You'll be selling AI-powered commerce solutions to e-commerce brands and retailers. This is a build-it-yourself role—no established playbook, no SDR team feeding you leads, no mature sales process. You figure out what works.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Seed/Early (described as "startup", small team)

Size: ~20 employees (estimated based on startup stage)

Growth: Actively hiring, described as "exciting" which usually means recent funding or traction

Market Position: New entrant in crowded AI/Commerce space. Category is hot but competitive.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 80% Outbound - You're building lists, sending cold emails, making calls to e-commerce brands
• 15% Network/Warm intros - Founder intros, LinkedIn connections, industry contacts
• 5% Inbound - Minimal website traffic, maybe some conference leads

SDR/AE Structure: No SDRs. You do your own prospecting.

SE Support: Likely none dedicated. Founders or engineers jump on technical calls when needed.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Hard to say without specifics, but likely competing against:

• Established e-commerce platforms with AI features (Shopify, BigCommerce)
• Other AI commerce tools (personalization, search, recommendations)
• "Do nothing" - brands using basic tools or building in-house

How They Differentiate: Unknown - you'll need to figure this out with the founders

Common Objections:

• "We already have Shopify/platform X"
• "How is this different from [other AI tool]?"
• "We're not ready to adopt AI yet"
• "What's the ROI?"

Win Themes: TBD - this is what you'll help define

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting (40%) | Active Deals (30%) | Product Feedback/Internal (30%)

Key Activities

• Outbound Prospecting: Building lists of e-commerce brands, sending cold emails, LinkedIn outreach. Most won't respond. You're looking for 5-10 qualified conversations per week.
• Discovery & Demos: Running calls with e-commerce/retail folks to understand their pain points. Demos are probably rough—product is early, so you're selling vision as much as features.
• Closing & Negotiating: Working through procurement (if enterprise) or getting signatures from founders/heads of e-commerce. Pricing is probably still being figured out.
• Customer Handoff: Once someone buys, you're probably involved in onboarding and making sure they're successful. No dedicated CS team yet.
• Internal Strategy: Weekly meetings with founders to discuss what's working, what objections you're hearing, what features customers need. You're shaping the product roadmap and GTM strategy.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You're selling a product that's still being built. Features will be missing. Demos will break. You'll promise things that don't exist yet.
• No one knows who should buy this yet. You'll waste time talking to wrong buyers and dead-end prospects.
• AI in commerce is hyped but also skeptically received. You'll hear "we've tried AI tools before and they didn't work" constantly.
• Compensation structure is unclear—startup equity vs cash, quota vs no quota. You need to negotiate this.
• You'll feel like you're making it up as you go because you are.

What Success Looks Like

• Close 5-10 early customers in first 6 months (logos > revenue at this stage)
• Define an ICP that converts: company size, tech stack, use case
• Build a repeatable demo flow and pitch deck that resonates
• Establish pricing that customers will actually pay
• Generate enough product feedback to influence roadmap

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Head of E-commerce / Digital (SMB/Mid-market brands)
• CTO/VP Engineering (if technical product)
• Founder/CEO (at smaller DTC brands)

What They Care About:

• ROI: Can this increase conversion rate or AOV measurably?
• Integration: Does it work with their existing stack (Shopify, Klaviyo, etc.)?
• Risk: Is this company going to be around in 12 months?
• Time to value: How long until they see results?

Requirements

• Comfortable with ambiguity and building process from scratch
• Experience selling B2B SaaS, ideally in e-commerce/retail/martech
• Self-directed: no one will tell you what to do daily
• Technical enough to understand AI/ML concepts and explain them simply
• Willing to work for startup compensation (lower base, equity upside)
• Swedish language skills likely helpful for local market (Stockholm-based)
• Resilience: you'll hear "no" a lot while finding product-market fit