The Front Lines
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Tim Geisenheimer.
CRO · Hatch
I love building high performing GTM teams at startups and large tech companies. I've been the first sales hire at inception all the way to managing a 25-person team of a $100m ARR business unit at a public company. I'm fascinated by the modern sales process and enabling teams to do their best work by leveraging modern tools and systems. Most recently I founded Correlated, a company that enables sellers to use signals to identify their highest potential accounts. We raised >$8m from institutional investors including NextView Ventures and Harrison Metal.
Guest
Tim Geisenheimer
CRO
Company:
Hatch
Location:
Brooklyn, NY
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In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Tim Geisenheimer, CRO at Hatch, about building high-performing outbound sales teams in the AI era. Drawing from his experience scaling revenue organizations at Twitter, Correlated, and now Hatch, Tim shares tactical frameworks for identifying candidates who thrive in phone-centric environments, conducting scientific reference checks, and managing complex interview processes. His insights reveal how successful CROs are adapting their hiring strategies while maintaining focus on fundamental sales fundamentals that AI hasn't disrupted.

Topics discussed:

ABOUT YOUR HOST: 

Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. 

Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com

Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

Five takeaways from this conversation.

Actionable for Whispered Hiring founders

  1. Ask About Adversity, Not Achievements
    Most candidates come armed with quota successes and growth stories, but Tim focuses on a different question: "Tell me about a time where you had to show grit or perseverance, where things didn't go your way. How did you respond?" This reveals how candidates handle setbacks—the real predictor of sales performance when deals fall through and territories underperform.
  2. Take Hiring Decisions Off the Table During References
    Traditional reference checks are "often a formality" where candidates provide friendly contacts who deliver predictable positive feedback. Tim's solution: tell references "we're pretty excited, we're planning on making this person an offer" and ask "how can I work with them better?" This removes the gatekeeping dynamic and unlocks honest insights about working styles and pressure responses.
  3. Conduct Back-Channel References Beyond the Curated List
    Tim actively finds people who actually worked with candidates, not just their handpicked references. This "triangulation" approach reveals authentic character patterns that friendly references never expose. The goal isn't to find dirt—it's to understand how candidates really perform when stakes are high.
  4. Evaluate Bias to Action During the First 2-3 Weeks
    At Hatch's 100-person scale where "the business is fundamentally changing every three to six months," Tim measures whether new hires independently schedule stakeholder meetings, identify knowledge gaps, and drive their own learning without micromanagement. This self-direction predicts success in fast-growth environments where individual agency determines outcomes.
  5. Screen for Phone Willingness as a Persistence Indicator
    While others optimize email sequences, Tim's top performers pick up the phone. For outbound GTM roles, willingness to cold call signals the persistence required when email and LinkedIn don't work. This behavioral difference often creates exponential performance gaps that traditional interviews completely miss.

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