Inside DeepSet’s Sales Evolution: Why They Stayed Founder-Led for 5+ Years
Most technical founders rush to hand off sales as quickly as possible. DeepSet took a different approach, maintaining founder-led sales for over five years before building their professional sales team. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, founder Malte Pietsch shared a candid perspective on this unconventional choice – and why he now wishes they’d made the transition sooner.
The Early Sales Strategy “We started basically doing professional services. We built custom AI solutions, learning solutions for enterprise customers,” Malte explains of their early days. This services-first approach meant the founders were naturally positioned to lead sales conversations, as they deeply understood both the technical and business challenges their customers faced.
Learning Through Direct Customer Contact The extended period of founder-led sales provided crucial market insights. “Be close to your customers. So I think for us, this bootstrapping phase was incredibly valuable because we just learned so much about really pain points of these customers in various companies before we had anything,” Malte reflects.
The Pre-ChatGPT Era During this period, the AI infrastructure market was still emerging. “Back then when we actually started, no one talked about llms, few talked about nap back then,” Malte recalls. Having founders lead technical sales conversations proved valuable in educating the market and building credibility.
The Market Acceleration The explosion of interest in AI following ChatGPT’s release created new challenges. As Malte describes it: “Last year was really astonishing. I think not so much that it happened, but rather than how I think the whole market jumped on it and how fast, I think the kind of markets jumped on it and how much I know how many new startups grew overnight.”
The Transition Point Looking back, Malte is candid about the timing: “I would probably also hire a sales team earlier, to be honest. So we did, I think, for a very long time, Founder led sales and only hired last October.” This transition came as market interest surged and maintaining founder-led sales became increasingly challenging.
Building the Professional Team The shift to professional sales wasn’t just about hiring salespeople – it was about creating systematic processes. “I think now that we have their system in place, I see how things are developing in a very healthy way, very structured way,” Malte notes.
However, he emphasizes that finding the right leadership was crucial: “What was hard? I think finding the right person, the right leader for sales. That took us actually longer than before.”
Key Lessons for Technical Founders
- Market Understanding: Early founder-led sales provides invaluable market insights
- Timing the Transition: Don’t wait for the market to force your hand
- Leadership First: Focus on finding the right sales leadership before building the team
- Systems Over People: Create systematic processes rather than just hiring salespeople
The Future Vision The evolution of their sales organization aligns with DeepSet’s broader vision. “In three to five years, I really believe AI will be embedded in all products, like in our daily life. All processes or products will have some AI feature embedded,” Malte predicts.
For technical founders building complex products, DeepSet’s experience offers several crucial insights. While founder-led sales can provide valuable market understanding, the transition to professional sales shouldn’t wait until it becomes a necessity. The key is to use the founder-led period strategically – gathering insights and building processes that will enable a successful transition to scalable sales operations.
Their story suggests that in deep tech markets, the question isn’t whether to transition from founder-led sales, but how to time that transition to maximize learning while maintaining growth potential. Sometimes, as Malte candidly admits, that transition should come sooner rather than later.