Samantha Cerqueira

Sales & Solutions Specialist

Atlassian Quantum Ventures Portfolio Companies

Account ExecutivePLG AssistedConsultativeRemote📍 Various (Remote EEA/UK, Santa Barbara CA, London, NYC, EMEA, Tel Aviv)
Deal Size: $500-50K ACV
Sales Cycle: 2 weeks to 3 months
Posted by Samantha Cerqueira

Overview

You're selling a keyboard-centric productivity hub that lets users launch apps, manage tasks, and control their computer without touching the mouse. Your buyers are developers, designers, product managers, and other knowledge workers who care about workflow efficiency. Most leads come from product-qualified users who've hit free plan limits or want team features.


Role Snapshot

AspectDetails
Role TypeProduct-led AE (PLS/PQA focused)
Sales MotionPLG-assisted with some outbound to warm accounts
Deal ComplexityConsultative for teams, transactional for individuals
Sales Cycle2-6 weeks (individual), 1-3 months (team/enterprise)
Deal Size$500-5K ACV (SMB), $10K-50K (team/enterprise)
Quota (est.)$30-50K/month in new ARR

Company Context

Stage: Series A-B (VC-backed through Atlassian Ventures)

Size: 20-50 employees (estimate based on early growth stage)

Growth: Actively hiring across sales and eng, backed by Atlassian's portfolio

Market Position: Niche player in productivity tools - competing on depth for power users vs breadth of Notion/Coda


GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

  • 70% Product-qualified leads - users who hit usage limits, requested features, or browse pricing page
  • 20% Outbound to engaged free users - you can see who's active in the product
  • 10% Inbound marketing - content, community, word-of-mouth

SDR/AE Structure: No SDRs - you work PQLs from the product team and do your own outbound to warm accounts

SE Support: No dedicated SE - you do your own demos and technical troubleshooting


Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Raycast, Alfred (on Mac), general productivity tools like Notion, Slack

How They Differentiate: Keyboard-first UX for power users, deep OS integration, extensibility

Common Objections: "We already use Notion/Slack", "Too technical for my team", "Don't want to learn new shortcuts"

Win Themes: Speed (10x faster workflows), power user appeal, consolidation (replaces 5+ tools)


What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

PQL Outreach (30%) | Product Demos (35%) | Account Expansion (20%) | Internal (15%)

Key Activities

  • PQL Triage: Review daily lists of users who hit paywall, requested features, or showed buying signals in-product. Send targeted emails explaining how paid plans solve their specific use case.
  • Live Demos: Run 45-min screen shares showing advanced features, shortcuts, and team workflows. You're teaching people how to rewire their muscle memory.
  • Async Video Demos: Record personalized Looms showing use cases relevant to their role (dev workflows, design handoff, PM task management).
  • Expansion Plays: Check usage data to see which individual users could bring in their team. Reach out with ROI pitch for team plan.
  • Partnership with Product: Feed feature requests and friction points back to eng. Users often want specific integrations before buying.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

  • You're selling a workflow change, not just a tool. Many prospects love it but never finish the learning curve.
  • Individual deals are small ($500-2K/year). You need volume to hit quota.
  • Product-led means you can't control lead flow - quiet weeks happen when product changes slow down.
  • Free users can be demanding. You spend time on support-like questions for people who may never pay.
  • Team deals require getting buy-in from multiple people who each need to learn the tool.

What Success Looks Like

  • Converting 20-30% of PQLs you engage with to paid plans
  • Average deal size climbing from $1K to $3K+ as you sell more team plans
  • 30-40% of customers expanding seats or upgrading within 6 months
  • Building a community of power users who refer others

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

  • Individual contributors (developers, designers, PMs) using personal cards
  • Team leads or managers buying for 5-20 person teams
  • IT/Ops at 100-500 person companies buying site licenses

What They Care About:

  • Keyboard shortcuts and workflow speed - they're optimizers
  • Integrations with their existing stack (GitHub, Figma, Linear, etc.)
  • Team consistency - don't want half the team using it, half not
  • Data security and admin controls (for enterprise buyers)

Requirements

  • 2-4 years in SaaS sales, ideally PLG or product-led growth
  • You use productivity tools heavily yourself - bonus if you're already a power user of similar tools
  • Comfortable doing technical demos and troubleshooting (no SE support)
  • Experience selling to developers, designers, or technical buyers
  • Based in EEA or UK (remote)
  • Self-starter who can work a PQL queue without constant hand-holding