Founding Account Executive

The Founding Account Executive will play a pivotal role in building a repeatable, scalable sales engine for a fast-growing, profitable European software company.
With strong product-led growth and a steady stream of inbound demand, the business is ready to turn individual users into larger teams, departments, and enterprise customers.
This hands-on role combines new business development, account expansion, full-cycle sales, and the creation of foundational sales processes.
You will manage qualified leads, conduct discovery calls and product demonstrations, navigate security and legal reviews, negotiate commercial terms, and close deals.
You will also grow existing accounts by introducing additional teams and expanding adoption across a modular platform covering scheduling, CRM, communications, AI-powered notes, e-signatures, and invoicing.
Working directly with the founders, you will influence pricing, product packaging, and go-to-market strategy through customer insights and market feedback.
As the sales motion becomes repeatable, you will have the opportunity to help build the commercial team and progress into a broader leadership role across Europe and future markets.

• Follow up with qualified company registrations and inbound leads to understand customer needs and identify opportunities for broader adoption.

• Convert individual users into team, departmental, and enterprise-level customers.

• Develop relationships with prospective customers and identify opportunities to expand the customer base across relevant market segments.

• Manage and develop existing customer accounts, increasing adoption across additional teams and product modules.

• Identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities for CRM, WhatsApp, AI-powered notes, e-signatures, invoicing, and other platform capabilities.

• Build long-term customer relationships by understanding evolving business needs and demonstrating relevant product value.

• Own the sales process from discovery and product demonstrations through proposals, negotiations, security and legal reviews, and contract signature.

• Manage booked sales meetings and maintain momentum throughout the sales cycle.

• Work directly with the founders on strategic opportunities and high-value deals.

• Consistently monitor sales performance and work toward agreed revenue and activity targets.

• Build the foundational sales infrastructure, including pipeline management, CRM standards, forecasting, sales playbooks, and effective handover processes.

• Document successful approaches and turn individual wins into repeatable sales practices.

• Track performance data, identify process improvements, and establish a more predictable approach to revenue growth.

• Share customer feedback and market insights to influence pricing, packaging, product development, and go-to-market strategy.

• Work closely with the founders to prioritize opportunities and refine the commercial approach.

• Help establish a scalable sales motion that can support future team expansion and entry into additional markets.

• Approximately 4–8 years of B2B software sales experience, including at least 2 years with direct responsibility for closing deals.

• Native-level German proficiency or German at C2 level, together with good English communication skills.

• Demonstrated experience independently managing the full sales cycle, including discovery, product demonstrations, proposals, security and legal discussions, negotiations, and closing.

• Proven ability to expand existing customer accounts, in addition to acquiring new customers.

• Strong understanding of sales performance metrics, with the ability to clearly communicate targets, attainment, average contract value, and average sales cycle length from previous roles.

• Experience maintaining accurate CRM records, managing pipeline activity, forecasting, and building structured sales processes.

• Strong commercial judgment, customer discovery skills, and the ability to identify opportunities for broader product adoption.

• An independent, accountable, and execution-focused working style, with the confidence to communicate early when assumptions or strategies are not working.

• Comfort operating in a fast-growing environment where processes are still being developed and priorities may evolve quickly.

• Preferred experience: Working in a bootstrapped, profitable, or rapidly scaling software company with fewer than 200 employees.

• Preferred experience: Managing longer sales cycles involving German mid-market and enterprise customers.

• Preferred experience: Building repeatable sales processes from product-led growth or inbound demand.

• A specific degree, corporate background, prior knowledge of the product, or residence in Cologne is not required. Practical sales performance, customer understanding, transparency, and reliable execution are the priorities.