Founder-led Sales to GTM Team | AJ Tennant (Tenacity Capital)

Most founders hit a wall when it's time to move beyond founder-led sales. Get it wrong and growth stalls or the wrong team gets hired. AJ Tennant, Founder & GP at Tenacity Capital and former GTM leader at Facebook, Slack, and Glean, knows how to get it right. In this session, he shares how to spot the right moment to hire, build a sales motion that actually works, and avoid the mistakes that kill momentum. — AI-generated key takeaways Lead with the why: anchor sales in mission/pain, not features. Drive discovery: target ~50/50 talk time; be curious, teach with a POV (Challenger). Qualify hard: shift POC/pilot to “Proof of Value” with upfront success criteria and commercial commitment; use give/get. Win the people: identify/test the Economic Buyer and a true Champion (e.g., texting relationship, influence). Build GTM muscle: set net-new meeting targets, implement CRM/forecast cadence early, add SDRs ~$3M ARR, hire Head of Sales around $5–10M ARR. — Slush is the most founder-focused event on Earth, delivering actionable company-building advice while bringing together the who’s who in startups and tech. Slush will be back on Nov 18–19, 2026 in Helsinki, Finland. Stay in the loop: slush.org linkedin.com/company/slush instagram.com/slushhq x.com/slushhq