Founding Account Executive

Clera•San Francisco, CA

3d•$200,000 - $270,000•Onsite

About The Position

This is the first dedicated sales hire at a fast-growing, seed-stage B2B SaaS company building an AI-powered platform for value intelligence — helping enterprise and mid-market sales teams create rigorous, data-driven business cases and measure ROI across the full customer lifecycle. The company has closed dozens of enterprise customers with zero churn through founder-led sales, and is now ready to transition that motion into a repeatable, scalable function. As the Founding Account Executive, you will own the mid-market sales motion end-to-end: sourcing your own pipeline, running full-cycle deals, and closing independently. The CEO will continue to lead larger strategic accounts and co-sell on select enterprise deals — but mid-market is yours to build and scale. This is the most critical go-to-market hire the company is making right now, and it comes with meaningful equity.

Requirements

Proven track record owning end-to-end mid-market SaaS sales — sourcing, qualifying, negotiating, and closing deals independently
Ability to build, present, and defend business cases and ROI analyses with and for customers; comfort with value-based and outcome-based selling
Experience selling to senior GTM stakeholders (CROs, VPs of Sales, Sales Ops/Enablement leaders) at B2B SaaS companies
Strong written and verbal communication skills; capable of engaging executives and multi-stakeholder buying committees
Self-starter mentality — you thrive in ambiguous, early-stage environments where the playbook is still being written
Must be authorized to work in the United States without employer-sponsored visa — visa sponsorship is not available
Must be willing to work on-site in San Francisco, CA — remote work is not offered for this role

Nice To Haves

Backgrounds from companies such as Salesforce, Google, Accenture, BCG, or Deloitte are a strong signal; experience in value engineering, sales enablement, or SaaS GTM tooling is a plus

Responsibilities

Build your own pipeline. There is no SDR team. You'll develop a repeatable outbound motion targeting the ICP — Series C–E SaaS companies with emerging or scaling value engineering functions. Prospecting, networking, events, and creative channel plays are all part of your toolkit. If you need leads handed to you, this role isn't the right fit.
Run full-cycle mid-market deals. Own every stage from first meeting through signed contract — including discovery, multi-threading across buying committees of 5–10 stakeholders, positioning with economic buyers (typically CROs), navigating procurement, and closing.
Engage sophisticated buyers. Your primary personas are Heads of Value Engineering, VPs of Sales, and CROs at scaling B2B SaaS companies. These buyers know what great selling looks like and will expect you to have done this work yourself.
Partner on expansion. Stay involved post-close alongside the Implementation Lead to identify and drive upsell and expansion opportunities. You're incentivized on expansion revenue.
Build the playbook. As the first AE, you'll help define and document the repeatable sales motion — messaging, objection handling, deal stages, and qualification criteria — that future hires will build on.